


Tales From Kaer Morhen

by aleberg9



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Child Abuse, Clothed Sex, Consensual Underage Sex, Drug Use, Growing Up, Kaer Morhen, M/M, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Rennes(The Witcher), The Witcher Lore, Traumatic Childhoods, Witcher Trials, Witchers in training
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:00:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 46,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24432481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aleberg9/pseuds/aleberg9
Summary: Kaer Morhen is an ancient keep, and has seen generations of witchers live and die.These are some tales of Geralt and Eskel growing up together-and what life is like in a fully functioning Witchers' keep.(Lambert will most likely appear in later chapters)
Relationships: Eskel/Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia
Comments: 85
Kudos: 130





	1. A New Brother

It’s an unseasonably warm fall day, and Geralt is running around the front courtyard, trying to gather in the chickens who had just escaped from their coop.

There is a lot of shouting and pecking and feathers flying through the air. Some of the older boys, the ones who are already in training, are helping. Some of the Masters are watching and laughing at their antics.

There is a commotion at the gates and Witcher Gregory comes through leading a small band of boys, exhausted and shell shocked from the climb up the mountain.

The chickens are still running wild but Geralt and the other boys stop to watch with curious eyes.

Most boys come in one by one over the summer, either as Child Surprises picked up in payment or orphans picked up after a hunt gone bad. The average age is six and the boys are given some time to acclimate to Kaer Morhen before their training begins in the Winter. 

In the fall, however, sometimes a Witcher will go out and pick through the orphanages and gutters of the world to round out the cohort for the year. They come back with five to eight boys following behind them like a string of ducklings, some of them crying and some of them silent and some of them fuming.

Geralt is always fascinated when the new boys are bought in. He watches wide eyed as the new faces are introduced to the keep and wonders with the morbid innocence of small children which ones will survive to become Witchers.

But this year is extra special.

He is five years old, and he will finally begin his training this winter. The boys who are being brought in now, these will be his cohort. His band of extra close brothers who will follow him throughout the trials.

Usually he stays back when the new boys are brought in, and lets the Masters sort them out.

The boys in training rarely have time to speak with him, much less befriend him, so he is used to living with them on the outskirts, waiting until he is old enough to fully enter the well oiled machine that is Kaer Morhen.

But this year is special.

He marks every face that comes through the gate with careful intensity. Already he has a knack for remembering things, and he swears to himself that by the end of the day he will have every detail of their faces memorized.

The first one through is tall for his age and bulky as well. His dirty face is scrunched up in poorly disguised fear.

The next two are so similar they could be blood brothers, something which Geralt has only ever heard about but never seen.

They are both small and scrawny and so blond they practically glow. But where one of them is silently crying, the other is glancing around in open curiosity.

The fourth comes in limping, and his skin is as dark as the last two were pale and his hair is a wild crazy mess. Geralt sees actual twigs sticking out of it.

The last boy to walk through is olive skin with thick black hair falling into his eyes. He walks in stiffly, glancing around him with little nervous twitches like a scared rabbit. He makes it about half way through the portcullis before he stops, overwhelmed.

Geralt sniffs the air, desperately wishing that he could simply smell what the other boy was feeling, the way that the full grown Witchers can. But as always he only gets the faint smell of sun warmed stone, chickens, and clear mountain air.

Geralt glances around at the Masters who have come out to greet the new boys. Looks at Master Vesemir and old Master Barmin and sees how they both take one look at the dark haired boy and clearly dismiss him as a lost cause.

Geralt feels something undefinable rise up in his chest. The feeling is similar to the one he gets when Master Vesemir tells him off for sneaking into the practice halls and training when he’s supposed to be doing chores. The feeling he got when he came down with a fever last winter and Old Master Barmin didn’t want to waste medicine on him. A feeling of defiance verging on resentment.

He puts his chin up and walks over to the dark haired boy, who barely looks at him as he comes to a stop in front him. Geralt puts out his hand and grasps the boy by the forearm, like he’s seen the Witchers do in greeting. The boy doesn’t grab back but he also doesn’t resist, and Geralt gives him a shake trying to show him how its done.

“What’s your name?” He asks excitedly, “My name is Geralt, I’m gonna be your brother.”

The boy’s dark eyes are wide with shock, but he mumbles out, “Umm, I’m Eskel.” And finally returns the grip on Geralt’s arm.

Geralt grins with success and lets go to lead Eskel further into the courtyard. “Don’t worry Eskel,” He tells him, “Witcher Gregory is always grumpy, but you don’t have to see him much here. Here, this is Master Vesemir. Master Vesemir, this is Eskel, can he share my bunk?” Now that Geralt is going to join a cohort, he gets to sleep in a dorm room with several bunk beds, a room that he will share with his new brothers until they graduate onto the Path. He can’t wait to move out of the renovated closet he sleeps in now and finally get to share a bunk bed with someone, and he really hopes that Master Vesemir will agree to his request.

Master Vesemir looks over and heaves a long suffering sigh. Geralt has been told on numerous occasions that he is personally responsible for having robbed Master Vesemir of the last of his brown hair. Geralt thinks he would have remembered if he stole someones _hair_. “Geralt, nice of you to introduce us. Yes, you may share a bunk. But before that Eskel needs to find new clothes, and I am sure he is very hungry after climbing up the mountain, you should let him eat.”

Geralt bounced on his feet and opened his mouth, but Master Vesemir spoke over him, “Yes, you can help him find his clothes, but after he eats lunch and after you finish gathering in those chickens.”

Geralt pouts but theres nothing he can do so he promises the still shocked looking Eskel that he will find him after lunch and scampers off to herd the chickens with renewed vigor. He can’t wait to show Eskel the hot springs under the keep, or the tower with the broken top where all the ravens nest. Or the library with the endless books.

Idly, he wonders as he runs after a particularly troublesome hen, if Eskel can read. He looked maybe a little older than Geralt, but if not maybe they could learn together?

Geralt smiles wide enough that it hurts, and finally catches the last hen under his arm. He can’t wait for training to start!


	2. Arrival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eskel arrives at Kaer Morhen

His first few weeks in Kaer Morhen are some of the most confusing weeks of his life.

Had you asked Eskel a week ago what he would have thought about living in a keep full of Witchers he would have told you that it would be terrifying, but that was before he watched his entire family be torn apart by ghouls.

When the scarred Witcher came and found him hiding in the apple tree behind his house, Eskel came down and knew that nothing would ever scare him like that one terrible night. He remembers the glassy eyed stare of his older sister, her round face staring up at him from where her head and rolled away from her body, as he is led away from everything he has ever known.

So instead of terrifying Kaer Morhen is merely confusing and very, very strange. It is so different from anything else which he has known in his short six years of life that part of him thinks he might have died and gone to the afterlife after all.

The climb up the mountain is mind numbing in its exhaustion, and Szymon the dark skinned Zerrakanian boy almost dies when he stumbles over a rock and goes tumbling down into a thicket. The Witcher recovers him, but his limp slows down the last leg of their journey considerably.

When the keep is finally revealed after the final twist of the path, it is huge and looming and so cold and gray it looks to be practically a part of the mountain itself. Raw stone that has only made the faintest of efforts to make itself habitable for human beings.

Though, Eskel muses, most of the beings inside that keep are not exactly human, so maybe they find this hulking stone monolith perfectly inhabitable by their standards.

Suddenly it’s like the weight of the entire mountain is bearing down on him, and Eskel thinks he might never move again. Exhaustion and shock finally get the better of him and he makes it only half way through the portcullis before his body grinds to a stop. Every horror story his mother ever told him about Witchers come rising to the front of his mind. But before that thought can spiral out of control a small body comes barreling toward him. The little boy moves so fast that he almost collides with Eskel, and he stares up at him with bright green eyes through tousled auburn hair.

Before Eskel can react, the boy grabs his arm and starts shaking it energetically. “What’s your name?” He asks breathlessly, in the same lilting accent as the Witcher who brought them here. His gaze is fearless and slightly curious when it fixes firmly on Eskel’s face. “My name is Geralt. I’m gonna be your brother!” Geralt exclaims, and Eskel can only blink at him in shock. Brother? What the hell is that supposed to mean?

Eskel can barely stutter out his own name before Geralt is excitedly pulling Eskel further into the courtyard and is introducing him to a gray haired Witcher with a scowling face under a thick mustache.

Master Vesemir somehow manages to disentangle Geralt from him by sending him after some chickens, and Eskel is herded in with the other boys into a massive dining room.

The five of them file into a long entrance chamber, where Master Vesemir and another Witcher promptly check them for lice, dumping an awful white power over their hair that itches something fierce, but then they are led into a hall with the promise of food, and the itching fades to the background.

The hall is easily the biggest indoor space that Eskel has ever seen, who grew up poor in a hamlet barely worth the name in the swamps of Velen, and can’t help but gape at the vaulted ceiling, and the hundreds of long trestle tables set up in two long rows on either side of the _five_ massive fireplaces. He barely takes in the thick tapestries covering the walls or the furs piled in front of the fireplace set into the opposite wall from the entrance.

Some older boys come streaming in with boards piled high with sausage, cheese, and good dark bread and Eskel crowds around with the others once it is set on the nearest table.

Eskel is famished.

The same boys as earlier place tankards of some strange drink in front of the new children, and despite its odd taste Eskel drinks it all in almost one go.

When he finally looks up after eating his fill, he finds that the hall has emptied of everyone but the boys at the table and a burly looking Witcher with a shaved head.

His eerie cat eyes watch from a distance as the five boys steadily demolish the food that has been placed in front of them, and Eskel can’t help but feel like he is being judged. Suddenly, he wants Geralt back. He has only known the boy for a few minutes, but already he wants to have his cheerful, thoughtless courage between himself and the weight of that yellow gaze.

As if summoned by his thoughts, Geralt came bouncing through the door that very moment. He is incredibly dusty and covered in chicken feathers. The second he finds Eskel’s gaze though, his face splits into a wide toothy grin and he flounces his way over, completely ignoring the Witcher who was sitting closer to the door.

“Eskel! Did you eat? Are you done now? Master Vesemir said I should help you find some clothes. Oooh, and we should get some furs, for the bed. Cause it gets cold at night and…oh…have you seen snow? The last boy who came here a few weeks ago, Gaden, he’s a Child Surprise, he’s never seen snow before! And-“

“Geralt! That’s enough!” The bald Witcher finally spoke out, standing up as he did so. The other boys at the table all fell silent. “You can come with, but I won’t have your endless chatter ringing in my ears.”

“Yes, Master Sanya.” Geralt grumbled, crestfallen. Eskel watched the exchange with a frown. It was true that Geralt spoke a lot, but his excitement was contagious, and Eskel didn’t like the way that the bald Witcher, Sanya, had barked at him, with an accent so thick as to be almost unintelligible.

After that they were taken to a large room full of spinning and sewing equipment. There was even a large loom in one corner. And in another several large wardrobes full of clothes in all sizes. While Eskel picked out a handful of outfits that would fit him, Geralt explained that everything here was passed down brother to brother, but Witchers on the Path would come home for winter and spend several weeks turning out whole new outfits fo themselves, and sometimes Geralt would help them card through the wool that they brought up the mountain with them. When he was older he was going to learn to sew, and then he would make the warmest clothes that had ever been made and he would never go cold again.

Nico, the large pig eyed boy they had picked up in Kaedwen snorted when he overheard the last bit. “Sissy.” He muttered under his breath. “Why don’t you just go put on a skirt while you’re at it?”

Geralt, who had definitely overheard the comment, only looked at him in confusion. His expression was so openly innocent that Eskel was reaching for him before he could think the action through.

“Why would I put on a skirt? They’re not very warm.” Geralt said, and even as the other boys started laughing Eskel was pulling him back towards the door, He was done here anyways.

“It’s ok, Geralt, I think sewing is a really useful skill. Don’t listen to them.”

“I don’t understand. Why….why wouldn’t sewing be a useful skill?”

Eskel could only shake his head in confusion. Did this boy really not understand the insult he had just been given? “Never mind. It’s stupid anyway.”

“Ok.” Geralt chirped, and just like that he was off on another topic.

That night, after they are shown to the hot springs under the keep and Eskel takes his first bath that isn’t just a three liter tub filled with lukewarm water, they return to the great hall for dinner and Eskel finally gets to the meet the rest of the boys that, according to Geralt, will be his cohort for the entirety of his training at Kaer Morhen.

Nico is six but tall for his age, and his father was killed by a mountain troll. Though clearly somewhat of a bully, underneath his sullen glares he looks almost petrified.

Szymon is already seven, and though his mother was Zerrakanian, his father was a traveling merchant in Kovir, who died of plague on their way through Kaedwen. He seems too in shock to be much terrified of anything, and has barely spoken fo days.

Olaf and Sigi are both from Skellige, but despite their similar looks have never seen each other before they were both picked up by Witcher Gregory, who found them as orphans left in the wake of a giant rampaging along the shores of Ard Skellige. Olaf hasn’t quite stopped sniffling since they arrived but Sigi has already began looking around with curious eyes.

Then there are the Child Surprises, who had all arrived long before Eskel and his group, and are already beginning to settle in.

Gaden is already seven, and was originally from far southern Touissant, which explains why he has never seen snow. He talks with a strange sing song accent and every other word out of his mouth is a complaint.

Gweld is six, and he was picked up in Redania, after a Witcher saved his mother from a water hag. He is skinny with bright red hair and a wild explosion of freckles across his expressive face. After Geralt, he is definitely the most talkative.

Krzysztof is a dark haired Kaedweni, and even at six is already showing signs of the bulky frame he will adapt as he grows older. He also has the oddest sense of humor that Eskel has ever heard.

Jacek is whip thin with a high pitched voice, and he has already been here for most of a year. He was taken as payment for the life of his oldest brother.

Further down the table there is Jakob, Stephan, Will, Ogden, Arris, Brecht, and Jalbert.

Geralt was brought to the keep when he was an infant, and has no memory of where he might have lived before.

In total there are seventeen of them. All of them boys whom Eskel has never known before, boys who he is now expected to share the next several years of his life with.

In all honesty, Eskel is still a little confused about what that means, from the way that Geralt explains it, in his innocent and over eager way, a cohort is a band of brothers amongst brothers. The Witchers of the School of the Wolf are a pack, Geralt explains, and they are all brothers, but the ones who you go through the trials with, the ones who survive, are supposed to be your closest family.

Despite his innocence, Geralt does not even stumble when he mentions that most of the boys who are sitting with them will die in the following years. There is no hesitation when he speaks of the fact that only a select few will live to actually become Witchers. Instead, he drops this fact almost as an aside, thoughtless and without any emphasis, but it leaves Eskel with a sick feeling, and he finds himself struggling to eat.

He thinks again of his family’s glassy eyed corpses as he walked away from his home for the last time. And he begins to think that maybe, he hasn’t been saved after all, but merely had his death prolonged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The powder they use to de-lice the boys is diatomaceous earth- an old school solution to lice


	3. Punishment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years later. Training is a harsh affair at Kaer Morhen- Geralt is seven and Eskel eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for extreme depictions of child abuse-skip if you want

Crack!

The cane whistles through the air before it snaps across Geralt’s wrist with a smarting flash of pain.

“I said firm your wrist. Your grip is as weak as an infants.” Master Sanya’s voice is just as harsh as his cane. He’s had them running through basic sword forms for hours, halting at each position to correct minor details in their shape. Sigi and Gweld are still tripping over their feet at every transition. And Jacek keeps overbalancing every time he has to lift his sword over his head. But Geralt has been doing the forms perfectly for over half an hour. In his padded leather jerkin, the summer sun is an unbearable heat that drives his irritation to the boiling point.

He whirls on Sanya with a snarl. “My grip is not weak! Just because I’m better then the others doesn’t mean you have to make up stupid reasons to hit me!” Out of the corner of his eye Geralt can see Eskel suck in a breath, and in a distant part of his brain he can hear Eskel’s calm voice telling him to back down. As usual, he fails to listen. “I’m not gonna let you-“

Smack!

Sanya’s slap knocks Geralt off his feet and onto the dirt, his practice sword goes flying out of his hand.

“Your grip is weak and your transitions are sloppy. You’re over confident. Over confident and overly proud. You’re no better than the rest of us, boy! And I don’t take backtalk from my students.” The other boys stop their own practice to watch. They all know what’s about to happen. Sanya takes an easy stance and flicks the cane through the air a few times, making it whistle. “Take off your shirt, boy! On your knees. Eskel, hold him down.”

Geralt grimaces but does as he’s told. Best to just get it over with.

He removes his shirt and kneels facing away from Sanya. Eskel approaches with an apologetic frown, but he takes Geralt’s hands in a firm grip and holds them to the ground, stretched out in front so that Geralt is forced to lean over his knees, exposing his back.

He bows his head and focuses on clearing his mind. He can hear Sanya shuffling behind him, and every movement makes him flinch.

“Fifteen strokes. You count. Begin.”

The cane whistles and then cracks across Geralt’s back. “One.” He counts.

Eskel’s grip on his writs is firm and steady. He won’t let him move.

The cane whistles again. “Two.”

Geralt focuses on Eskel. If he raises his head just a little, he can see his eyes.

“Three.”

Those dark eyes always remind Geralt of the warm furs spread out in front of the fire.

“Four.”

The pain across his back is beginning to spread into a dull fire. The individual strikes begin to blend together. He has to close his eyes and focus on the count.

“Five.”

Eskel’s hands are warm across his wrists, they are the only thing which keep him focused.

Geralt counts to fifteen.

When it is done the other boys disperse back to their practice. Geralt is told to go find Master Mściwoj in the library. He’ll get a salve for the bloody welts on his back. He’s expected back for training in half an hour.

Eskel:

“You know, if you hadn’t said anything, you wouldn’t be sleeping on your stomach for the next few days.” Eskel says later that night.

The two of them are squeezed together on Eskel’s bed, and Eskel is re-applying the pungent healing salve to Geralt’s back. Their teachers are always adamant about properly treating any injury. They loose enough boys to the trials and other miscellaneous accidents that they don’t want to add death from infection to that list.

“If I hadn’t said anything?! Eskel, he was hitting me for no reason. I was doing the forms. Just cause he can’t stand being stood up by one of his students doesn’t mean that he can hit me whenever he feels like it.” Geralt gestures wildly, and his raised voice receives several angry commands to be quiet. The other boys are trying to sleep.

Eskel takes a deep breath and tries to keep the squirming boy in front of him still. “I didn’t say that what he was doing was fair. Just you could be a little more careful, don’t pick fights with the teachers.”

Geralt only hums and crosses his arms in frustration.

He has come a long way from the five year old boy that Eskel first met when he came to Kaer Morhen. It’s only been two years since then, but Eskel is a year older than Geralt and can remember when he was all friendly innocents and naive charm. Eskel had to explain half the jokes that the other boys made just because Geralt could never understand their mean spirited humor.

His best friend is still friendly and still charming, but he’s also grown a prickly attitude of rebellion that always crops up at the worst possible times.

Geralt can be a perfect little angel whenever Vesemir or Mściwoj ask him to do something, but the second that Sanya starts to get carried away with his cane, or Kazimierz starts in on one of his lectures, it’s like all common sense leaves Geralt in a flash. Eskel is the one who is left to protect him as best as he can, and when he can’t, he picks up the pieces afterwards.

The punishment this morning is one that Geralt has become very familiar with of late. And by extension, so has Eskel.

Holding Geralt’s impossibly thin wrists while the cane whistled through the air, Eskel could have sworn that the hits were landing on his back as well. Geralt’s pain becoming his pain in an endless loop.

Distantly, as if through a half remembered dream, Eskel can recall a female voice telling him stories about a valiant prince and a beautiful maiden, who have to walk through fire together but come out the other side inseparable. He can’t remember the details of the story, just like he can’t remember if it was his mother or his sister who told the story, or if he even had a sister to begin with. But he thinks that this is something similar.

(After only a year at Kaer Morhen, the boys stopped talking about their homes and their lives before coming to the School of the Wolf. No one notices when it starts, but at some point thoughts of _before_ just became less common to the point of non existence.)

“Alright, all done.” He says, after wrapping a clean linen bandage around Geralt’s torso. “You sleeping here?” He asks, because it can be hard to tell sometimes when Geralt is annoyed and wants solitude or when he’s annoyed and wants company.

Tonight, it seems he wants company, because he lays down in Eskel’s bed without a word, letting Eskel pull up the blanket over the both of them.

They are not the only boys who occasionally share beds. Within the four walls of their dormitory, they are almost entirely left alone, with no one but each other to respond when nightmares shake them awake or aching muscles refuse to let them rest.

The beds are small but they make do, curling around each other until it becomes hard to tell them apart. Curly auburn hair fading into thick dark brown locks and olive skin stretched over pale freckles.

“Goodnight.” Eskel murmurs.

“G’dnigh.” Is the slurred response.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the story that Eskel recalls is the Magic Flute


	4. Winter Stories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eskel And Geralt and a winter evening at Kaer Morhen
> 
> Geralt is 8 and Eskel is 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for dead rats. Skip to "Eskel was about to tease them..." if you like

“I swear, I think my brain has turned to mush! If I have to read one more treatise on the medicinal applications of willow bark I’m gonna go insane!” Eskel groused as they walked down the hallway.

“The bark of the Salix Alba in the order Malpighiales in the family Salicaceae, extracted contains salicin to be applied as an analgesic and antipyretic tincture or infusion, as an affect of the salicylic acid produced upon consumption...” Geralt intoned from memory, adopting a droning, pretentious tone as he did so.

“Stop! I can’t stand it!” Eskel playfully shoved Geralt, who laughed and returned the favor, but thankfully stopped his recital.

They had just finished their afternoon classes with Master Kazimierz, who was in charge of teaching botany and had had them reading from the dreadful _lexicon botanica_ for several hours. It was a multi volume tome that in Eskel’s opinion was better suited for use as a doorstop than as a book. Usually botany lessons were taught in the greenhouse or in the gardens, and involved a lot more hands on training, but in the fiercest winter months they were forced to move indoors, which is when the books came out and Kazimierz set them all to memorizing exhausting list of plants and their various uses. It wasn’t that the information wasn’t important, it would build the basis for their alchemical studies later on as well as provide vital medicinal knowledge for the Path, but it was impossible not to become bored by three hundred year old books written by _monks_.

“I think those books get worse every time, you think Kazimierz put a curse on them just to make us suffer?” Geralt mused. Geralt had a long standing dislike of Kazimierz, a feeling which was entirely mutual. Every time they had class with the youngest of Kaer Morhen’s masters, Eskel braced himself for another round of Geralt’s dramatic outbursts. Unlike Master Sanya, Kazimierz was more likely to punish Geralt by making him run an extra loop along the Killer than beat him with a cane, but it was still unpleasant.

Eskel considered Geralt’s suggestion. “Nah, I don’t think Kazimierz is that creative. Besides, I doubt any curse could make those books worse.”

“True.” Geralt suddenly skipped a few paces ahead, overcome with a sudden burst of energy as he sometimes was. Despite his complaints, Eskel knew that Geralt had an incredible ability to soak in facts like a sponge, and actually genuinely enjoyed being given lists of obscure knowledge to memorize.

Suddenly, Geralt lunged forward without warning towards the wall and lashed his hand out with lightening speed. They had four more years to go before the Trial of the Grasses, but already Geralt was shockingly quick.

When Geralt turned around to face Eskel triumphantly, he was not at all surprised to see a dead rat held by its tail in Geralt’s hand. Eskel heaved a long suffering sigh.

“Geralt, seriously? You’re so weird.”

“you’re weird.” Geralt chirped back, and shook the rat in Eskel’s face with a playful grin.

There were no cats in Kaer Morhen, since they could not stand the presence of Witchers, but this meant that in the winter rodents would inevitably sneak into the keep to escape the freezing blizzards outside.

One of the first duties as a young boy in Kaer Morhen was to catch rats, a chore that doubled as a training exercise as it required not only speed but dexterity as well. But Geralt seemed to have a passion for it, and was constantly snatching rats out of dark corners and cracks in the walls without warning. Though, Eskel supposed, it wasn’t exactly the rat killing part that attracted Geralt.

“You know they don’t like you feeding their horses so many treats.” Eskel said as Geralt turned to trot off in a familiar direction. In the Winter when most of the active Witchers returned home, the stables were bursting full of horses, horses who were carefully bred to suit the Witcher lifestyle and all had an incredibly bloodthirsty appetite as a result. Every once and a while a Witcher would return with a different horse than the one they left with, and a calmer presence would be introduced to the stables, but the ones who had been born and raised in Kaer Morhen were nasty, foul tempered beasts, each and every one of them.

Geralt, who had been a little strange since the first day Eskel met him, was absolutely in love with them of course.

“It’s just one rat, and no one has to know. Besides, Gregory’s horse was looking a little thin, he could use some treats.” Geralt argued over his shoulder.

“Who doesn’t need to know what?” Called a new voice, and Eskel sighed as Gweld jogged to catch up with them as they turned down the corridor that would take them into the stables. Kaer Morhen was designed so that if you wanted to, you would never have to set a foot outside in order to access any other part of the castle. A blessing when winter storms could rage for days with winds strong enough to sweep you from the battlements.

“Geralt is feeding rats to the horses again.” Eskel explained, and Gweld laughed.

Gweld wasn’t the smartest boy, but he was good natured and fun, and often tagged along with Eskel and Geralt during their free time. The three of them chatted amiably as they followed Geralt to the stables, and Eskel kept a good distance as he watched the other two boys coo over the various horses that stuck their heads out to greet them. Geralt only got nipped at twice, and Gweld only had to extract his shirt from one over enthusiastic horse.

Eskel was about to tease them when then the bell tolled for dinner and they all scampered off eagerly to the great hall.

It was already filing up by the time they got there. The fires were all lit and crackling merrily as Witchers filled the upper tables and the boys of varying ages filed into the lower ones.

Eskel’s cohort, which had gone from seventeen to sixteen last fall when Ogden fell while running the Killer, were seated comfortably close to the first fire place closest to the main doors. The youngest boys sat behind them while the older boys who had already past the Grasses sat directly besides the Witchers. At the far end of the hall, besides the fourth fireplace, sat the Masters, those who lived full time at the keep with the trainees, and at the head of that table sat one-eyed Rennes, the head of the school.

Dinner was past in relative silence, as every boy hunched over their plate and focused wholeheartedly on shoveling as much food as they could into their mouths.

At the table ahead of them, a slight scuffle broke out as some older boys started a fight over the remaining bread rolls. But as long as no blood was spilled, no one would interfere.

As the food eventually disappears, conversation starts to pick up.

Brecht and Jalbert get into a heated debate about which Sign is the best, a discussion which in Eskel’s mind is totally pointless as they won’t be learning Signs for another five years.

Olaf and Sigi are carrying on their long standing defense of broad-headed arrows against Gaden’s insistence that bodkin points were better.

To his right, Geralt was talking animatedly about the white throated basilisk to Szymon, who was the only one polite enough to at least pretend to listen.

At some point Old Master Barmin heaves himself up from the head table and ushers the youngest boys off to clean the dishes, and Eskel is considering the merits of heading to bed when a pointed nod from one of the Witchers draws his attention. The other boys have noticed it as well, and they all grow silent as they get up and wonder towards the back of the hall.

Set into the far wall is a fifth, massive fireplace, which instead of trestle tables has an assortment of chairs and rich furs spread out in front of it.

The Witchers all raise and find their spots, and the boys fill in the gaps on the floor.

This is one of Eskel’s favorite things. It doesn’t happen often, but on select nights either a nod or a brush against the shoulder will invite the boys to stay and listen while the Witchers settle in for a night of story telling.

According to Master Vesemir, a Witcher who stops learning is a dead Witcher, and so every winter the Witchers gather around and share their stories from the Path in order that their brothers might learn from their experiences. Witcher Götz is the first to speak, and his rumbling voice immediately breaks into the even, measured beats that mark these stories as _important_ , as something more than just an interesting tale told between friends.

Next to him Geralt leans heavily into his side, his eyes unseeing as he focuses his startling mind on every word that Götz speaks. For all Eskel knows, he is already memorizing this tale.

Sometimes, a good story will be told winter after winter, passed down from Witcher to Witcher so that its lesson is never forgotten. Unlike the countless dusty journals and massive bestiaries in the library, these words will never be written down. Master Vesemir says they are meant to be kept alive by the Witchers of the Wolf School only, because some knowledge is best kept within the pack so that it cannot be used against them.

Every time he listens Eskel can feel a fierce warmth spread through his chest. A sense of pride at being entrusted with the wisdom of his elders. One day, he will return in the winter as a full blooded Witcher as well, and then it will be his turn to share a story with his brothers. But for now he is content to listen, letting the soothing rise and fall of the words, steady as a drum, soak through his body and lull him into peace.


	5. Pranks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Geralt pulls a prank.
> 
> Geralt is 8, Eskel is 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for slugs?

A loud splash went up from the dock as another boy was thrown unceremoniously into the water.

It was the summer solstice, and one of the few days in the year that they were given total leave from their training. Most of the boys had chosen to spend the day by the lake.

A great cheer went up as Ulrich resurfaced, spluttering, with a scowl on his uneven face. Ulrich was a few years older than Geralt, and would be facing the Trial of the Grasses along with the rest of his cohort on the autumn equinox.

But it wasn’t something that was really talked about.The looming deadline hung over everyone’s heads as it did every year but just like every year they all did their best to ignore it.

Geralt grinned to himself where he sat crouched in the tree line.

In all of the commotion, it had been easy to slip away unnoticed. And once he was far enough away, it hadn’t taken him long to find what he was looking for.

With a feral smirk, Geralt clutched a folded square of cloth in one hand. In front of him was a large pile of discarded clothes, left in a hurry as everyone rushed to be first in the water.

He scurried forward unnoticed and unwrapped the cloth. Inside were over a dozen slimy brown slugs, fat and oozing. He had collected them from the little inlet a few meters back, where the thick shade and soggy ground created the perfect habitat for moisture loving creatures. The slimy feel of the slugs was unpleasant, but Geralt didn’t let it bother him as he carefully hid them, one by one, throughout the discarded clothes.

When he was done, he crept back into the tree line, and approached the lake from a different angle.

Eskel sees him approach and calls him over. Gaden and Gweld are organizing a race across the lake, and Geralt joins in with glee.

Another pleasant hour is spent in the afternoon sun, splashing and tumbling around the lake, but eventually they begin wondering back up to the keep. Geralt tarries on the dock as he watches the first few boys begin to pick up their clothes.

When the first disgusted shriek bursts into the air, he grins with vicious satisfaction.

Krzysztof, who didn’t look before putting on his shirt, screams in disgust when the slug comes in contact with his back. The resulting flailing of limbs as he tries to get it out looks like some demented, over enthusiastic jig.

Jacek finds one when he is pulling up his pants, and starts hoping up and down and yelling cuss words with increasing volume.

Szymon is smart enough to find the slug hiding in his tunic before he puts it on, but breaks into an angry tirade all the same.

Eskel, Gaden, and some others whose clothes have come away slug free fall apart laughing.

Geralt is just running up to join them, thinking that he can simply hide in amongst the others who are bowled over in hysterics, when he realizes his mistake. Ulrich turns around and fixes him with a penetrating stare. HIs pants are held up to clearly show the three massive slugs clinging to the crotch.

Geralt chokes back a hysteric laugh, chances a glance at Eskel’s unsympathetic face, and breaks into a run.

The path back to the keep is all uphill, not as dangerous as the Killer but tricky non the less. Ulrich, along with a few other boys from his cohort, all have the advantage of longer legs as they take up the chase. But Geralt is exceptionally fast, and he pours every ounce of speed he can into his aching legs as he rushes up the steep incline towards safety.

Behind him he can hear the panting breaths and hurled insults of his pursuers closing in. He just has a little bit further to go.

With a mere handbreadth between him and his nearest pursuer, Geralt comes crashing though the side gate and into the eastern courtyard. He takes the twisting turn of the gatehouse at a sprint, allowing his body to fall into the wall before pushing off to haul himself around the corner. The entrance to the kitchens is dead ahead, and with no time to think things through, Geralt heads straight for it. He makes it over the threshold just as Ulrich catches up to him and catches him in a flying tackle. They both go sprawling onto the kitchen floor along with three other boys who quickly pile up on top.

Distantly, Geralt can hear the shrieks of the boys on kitchen duty, along with the angry growls of a Witcher. There’s a loud clatter as a bowl is dropped and suddenly Geralt finds himself wrestling with four other boys in a pile of pungent compost.

Ulrich has him in a tight headlock, while Stellyn is struggling to hold one thrashing leg and Tom and Barsten have latched onto his arms. Geralt twists and snarls and latches onto Barsten’s ear with his teeth. Barsten howls and lets go, cursing.

“Stop!” The command cracks across them like a whip. All five boys go still.

Still trapped, Geralt can only lay and wait until Master Vesemir’s stern face appears above him. Geralt tries his best to shrink into the floor.

Under Vesemir’s silent gaze, Geralt is released and all five boys move into a kneeling position facing Vesemir, their heads bowed in shame.

“Would someone like to explain why I’ve come in to find five boys without clothes wrestling in the kitchen?” Vesemir demanded in his stern tone.

“Geralt put slugs….!”

“They chased me…!”

“He bit..!”

“Enough!” Vesemir snapped as they all started speaking at once. Immediately they fell silent again. “One at a time. Stellyn, you explain.”

“Master Vesemir, Geralt put slugs in our clothes, down at the lake, we were just teaching him a lesson.” Stellyn reported.

Ulrich, Tom, and Barsten all nodded earnestly in agreement. Geralt scowls but is pleased to see that Barsten’s ear is bleeding slightly.

“And this lesson was so pressing that you had to chase him all the way to the kitchen before putting on some clothes?” Vesemir asks.

“They were covered in slugs, we couldn’t…!”

“The trail to the lake is dangerous enough, running it nude is a senseless risk. A Witcher never takes senseless risks.” Vesemir rebuked, before turning his attention to Geralt. “Slugs? What were you thinking, wolf?”

Geralt hunched his shoulders up to his ears, but he could tell that Vesemir wasn’t really mad at him. If he was, he would have called him _boy_ not _wolf_.

“It was just a harmless prank. It’s not like slugs are dangerous or anything.” He said, and looked Vesemir in the eye. “Besides, you should have seen the way that…”

“Geralt!” Vesemir barked. Just as Barsten whacked him over the head. “All of you, go back to the lake, put on your clothes. Geralt, you are to wash any items impacted by the slugs. The rest of you, you can start cleaning the kitchen. Geralt will join you when he is done with the laundry.”

Vesemir held up a hand to cut off their cries of protest.

“Barmin, it seems you have some new helpers for tonight. The rest of you boys, congratulations, you have the night off.”

A cheer went up amongst the boys on kitchen duty, and Old Barmin, who was absolutely ancient and in charge of the kitchen, nodded in his usual grim manner. “You can start by cleaning up the compost.” He said in his grumbling voice, and turned away to check the massive soup pot hanging over the fire.

Geralt groaned, but did as he was told.

Eskel:

Eskel was not at all surprised to find Geralt missing from dinner that evening. A glance at the table above theirs showed that the four boys who had chased him were missing as well.

Usually Geralt couldn’t resist pulling Eskel into his pranks with him. This one it seemed had been a solo mission. Eskel wasn’t sure if he should be grateful for that or hurt that he had been left out. As it was, he was only partially concerned that Geralt wouldn’t get anything to eat tonight. Though it had been a truly hilarious prank, so maybe he would sneak up a bread roll or something for him later.

To either side of him, though, the scowling faces of his brothers promised that not everyone would welcome Geralt back into their room so readily. Krzysztof was looking particularly murderous and Eskel started thinking that he should maybe be concerned about that. The last thing they needed was another prank war breaking out in their room.

Quietly Eskel was despairing over not having a single moments peace in the upcoming days when Sigi unknowingly helped solve the problem for him. The blonde boy had also escaped any slugs in his clothes, and had been giggling about the whole thing for hours. Currently, Sigi was excitedly retelling the whole event for everyone to hear, including a surprisingly accurate rendition of Krzysztof’s high squeal, which had sounded suspiciously pig like. The entire table erupted in laughter, and Krzysztof’s face went from murderous to beet red with embarrassment. 

_Good_ , thought Eskel. _Hopefully that will stop him from making too much fuss over this_.

Eskel was just returning from having locked the chicken coop for the night when Master Vesemir came across him in the hall. The gray haired Witcher didn’t say anything as they passed, but he pressed a wrapped bundle into Eskel’s hands with a wink.

When Eskel unknotted the cloth to peak inside, he found a thick slice of dark bread along with a chunk of rich cheese and dried meat. Dinner for Geralt.

He himself had only managed to grab a bread roll and an apple, soup was hard to hide in your pockets, but this would add enough food for an actual meal. He grinned as he walked up to his room. It was an open secret that Vesemir was one of the kindest of the Masters, and that he had a particular soft spot for Geralt was no secret either. Sometimes, it caused the auburn haired boy problems, as the others teased him for it. But on occasions like this, it was certainly an advantage.

That night, Eskel had to listen to a lengthy tirade about the horrible injustice that Geralt faced in the kitchen as the younger boy scarfed down his gifted dinner. Around his mouthful of cheese, Geralt complained about scrubbing the floor until the stones shone like precious metals. Eskel laughed and stole a bite of apple.

“Serves you right,” He teased. “for thinking that _slugs_ would make a good prank.” Eskel held his serious face for about a second, before Geralt’s betrayed expression sent him into peels of laughter, which only stopped after several pillows were thrown at him from across the room.


	6. Winter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winters can be hard sometimes-even for Witchers
> 
> Geralt is 11, Eskel is 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for food scarcity and starvation

Vesemir heaved a sigh as he morosely accepted a bowl of stew. Stew was too polite a word for what was passing as dinner these days. It was more of a thin broth with a few pieces of meat floating it. Vesemir delicately sniffed at the meat. Definitely horse. Idly, he wondered who had volunteered to sacrifice their mount this time.

Hard winters were not uncommon at Kaer Morhen. They were high up in the Blue Mountains, and between the bad weather and their isolation, it wasn’t unusual for winters to be lean and hungry. But this winter was definitely worse than normal.

Vesemir supposed it started when the wet spring brought a bad blight that killed a good chunk of their vegetable garden. Foraging for plants could provide a decent addition to their meals on a good year, but this year even the hardy camas plants that grew along the lower mountain slopes seemed to be having a hard time. During the summer when the keep only housed thirteen Witchers and seven dozen odd boys, even meager foraging was enough, but add in the thirty odd Witchers that returned in winter, and even if they were to spend every waking hour foraging it would not be enough to feed all those ravenous appetites.

Hunting was usually another good source of food, offset by the small herd of goats and chickens they kept at the keep for milk, eggs, and meat, but the wet spring had been followed by flash floods and land slides and the local wildlife had been scarce all summer.

All around, it had been one long year of bad luck.

Kaer Morhen was usually largely self sufficient. What they couldn’t make, grow, forage, or hunt themselves they sourced from the nearest villages, purchased with whatever coin Witchers could save while on the Path. Additional income came from the herbs, tinctures, animal pelts, or the occasional wooden carving made over long winters, which could be sold or exchanged for items like wool and flour down the mountain.

But each year brought increasing tales of hatred and fear turned against Witchers, and villages they had been trading with for centuries were beginning to refuse them service while monster contracts were paying less and less.

So maybe it was more than just a year of bad luck, Vesemir mused. Maybe it was a whole decade.

What little coin had been saved this year would go almost entirely to the dwarves in the Mahakam Mountains, who were the only ones who could forge a Witcher’s swords. At least six boys had passed the final trial to become full Witchers, and three of them were bound to start on the Path this spring. Though most of them would not survive past their first two years, they would each be given a brand new pair of swords none the less.

Dutifully, he began to eat his paper thin stew. Barmin had done his best to stretch out their supplies as much as possible, but this deep into the winter, it was beginning to taste less like food and more like plain water. At least it still had meat in it though.

If the winter continued to progress as it had been, colder and fiercer than any winter Vesemir could remember in recent history, than they would either have to start slaughtering more horses, which were priceless assets on the Path and expensive to replace, or make the choice to sacrifice the last of their goats. The last chicken had been slaughtered weeks ago, but five goats were still capable of producing milk, and were being kept in a corner of the great hall were it was warmer than in their drafty barn.

Vesemir looked down the hall at the boys huddled around their tables. Those close to undergoing the trials and those who had recently passed were prioritized and given whatever vegetables they had left along with a majority of the meat, but the youngest boys, who had received the least amount of training and were therefor easily replaced next summer, were likely to be eating the same thin broth that Vesemir and the other Witchers were enjoying. Extra herbs would be added to their drink to ward off scurvy, but already they had lost seven boys to sickness and hunger, and more were likely to follow.

Around him, Rennes and the other members of the council were carefully discussing their options.

Varin, who had always been pragmatic to the point of cruelty, was advocating that they cut their losses. There were roughly forty boys aged between six and ten, who were the most like to die anyways. They could be given a simple poison, something tasteless and painless, to ease their passing and ease the burden on Kaer Morhen’s dwindling supplies.

Jarosław, their potions master, and Dogbert, the resident mage who oversaw the Trials, seemed dangerously close to agreeing. But luckily Tjold, their primary sword master, and Rennes, whose voice carried the most weight out of all of them, were clearly shaking their heads in disagreement.

Hard winters were nothing new to Kaer Morhen, and they would deal with them same as they always had. If the storms didn’t let up in a few days, the trainers would begin forgoing food. Their Witcher metabolism would allow them to survive for weeks even if they ate only once every few days, and unlike those who would be returning to the Path in the spring, they could afford a little bit of weakness.

Additionally, diluted versions of certain potions could be brewed and given to the boys. It was a risk, since they were still fundamentally Witcher’s potions, but if the boys were strong enough, then the potions would ward off illness and give them back some of their energy.

Barmin and Mściwoj, though not officially part of the council, were old enough that their voices carried weight as well, and both of them spoke carefully in their measured voices in support of Rennes.

Vesemir would happily accept any level of discomfort if it meant saving as many boys as possible. Already they had to bury too many after the Trials and when the training proved too hard. He had stated his opinion at length yesterday and the day before. Whatever happened next would be decided by Rennes.

Down at one of the lower tables, a commotion started breaking out, and Vesemir tuned out the conversation around him to focus on what was happening further down. With empty bellies came short tempers, and brawls had been becoming increasingly violent of late.

He wasn’t surprised to find Eskel and Geralt involved. They were bright students both of them, Geralt with his endless passion and clever mind, and Eskel with his steady discipline and common sense. But they were also some of the most troublesome children of late.

Currently, the two seemed to be engaged in an argument of sorts. From the heated voices that Vesemir could hear, Geralt had been trying to share his meal with Gwaine, a boy who was a few years younger and small as a mouse. With a deadened heart, Vesemir had noticed that Gwaine had been growing quieter in the last days, succumbing to hunger as his eyes grew listless and dull. With an aching effort born out of long practice, Vesemir had been preparing to add the small boy to the list of dead.

Geralt, it seemed, was not so ready to give up.

Despite two centuries of experience and every bit of advice he had ever received from his bothers, Vesemir could not help but feel proud. Geralt wasn’t _his_ in any sense of the word, but it was his arms that Visenna had placed her small bundle into when she had appeared at the keep with Geralt barely a year old. And it was Vesemir who had kept the screaming child alive when his brothers had all shook their heads and given him up as a lost cause.

It was courting heartache, he knew, to grow so attached to one boy, but Vesemir couldn’t help it.

Geralt was eleven. In less than a year he would be facing the Trial of the Grasses. It was a sweet gesture, what Geralt was trying to do, only according to Eskel, this wasn’t the first time he had done it. It was a terrible choice, Vesemir, knew, but Eskel was right to stop Geralt. He couldn’t afford to weaken himself any further if he wanted a fighting chance to survive the Trial.

(Geralt’s cohort, which at started at seventeen, was larger than normal, and there were high hopes for several amongst them, including Geralt and Eskel. But already they had lost one boy to the Killer and another two during an agility test that required they scale up a sheer cliff face in under ten minutes.)

Vesemir heaved himself to his feet and walked over. The conversation came to a stop when he halted behind Geralt, and rested a heavy hand on his shoulder. Underneath his hand he could feel sharp bones beneath the layers of Geralt’s woolen clothes. “Keep you food, Wolf.” He said, “You need to eat too.”

He didn’t need to see his face to know the sullen expression of refusal that would be on Geralt’s face. The boy could be more stubborn than a rock when he wanted to be. And he was idealistic as well, a dangerous combination in Vesemir’s experience.

“I mean it, boy!” He growled, “You’ll not like it if we have to force feed you.”

Geralt remained silent but Eskel met Vesemir’s gaze and nodded. He would keep his brother alive if it was the last thing he did.

Satisfied, Vesemir nodded back and returned to his table. It looked like he would be going hungry sooner rather than later.

Eskel:

Sometime after midnight, Eskel woke from a half remembered dream.

He thinks he was running after something. Or maybe he had been running away. Everywhere he had looked, there had been golden eyes. But every time he thought they might bring help, they only turned away and vanished.

It took him a while to return fully to his senses, and for several minutes all he could register was darkness and the warmth of multiple bodies tangled around him.

The winter had been colder than any he could remember, and even their dormitory, with its thick walls and small, well insulated windows, was impossible to keep warm. In response, they had decided to push all of the beds to one side and pull their mattresses over to the fire. With all of their shared blankets heaped on top of thirteen boys, it made for an exceptionally cozy nest.

But as Eskel looked groggily in the dimly lit room, he could tell that something was wrong. Carefully, he untangled himself from Jalbert’s arm over his chest and Nico’s head currently crushing his thigh, and sat up. Geralt was noticeably missing from their pile.

Eskel looked around and eventually found him huddled on one of the empty bed frames by the door. He was crouched under a single blanket, and that far away from the banked fire he was sure to be cold.

Grumbling quietly to himself, Eskel picked his way out of the nest and made his way over.

The younger boy had an awful habit of brooding. Most of the time he was cheerful and outgoing, but Eskel had often found him sunken down into some dark mood, and sometimes it would take hours to lure him out of his head again. Lost as he was in his own spiraling thoughts, Geralt would grow practically mute during those times.

“Bad dream?” Eskel asked as he perched on the wooden frame next to Geralt. It was much colder at this end of the room, and the stone floor under his bare feet made him shiver.

Not expecting an answer any time soon, Eskel tugged at Geralt’s blanket until he let him lift a corner and press in close besides him.

Finally, Geralt seemed to return to himself, and with a little shake of his head turned to smile lopsidedly at Eskel. “No. Just thinking.” His eyes were very sad in the reddish light cast by the glowing coals in the fireplace.

“Well, that’s good.” Eskel teased, “was beginning to think you’d never figure it out.”

All he got for his efforts was a vaguely amused huff of air.

“Seriously, though. What were you thinking about?”

“Just…it’s nothing. Nothing I should be worried about.” Geralt murmured.

Eskel waited patiently.

“Do you think Gwaine will die?” Geralt finally asked. His voice came out sounding very small.

A familiar empty feeling opened up in Eskel’s chest. Like a hole was being dug in between his ribs. It was a feeling that was echoed by the empty gnawing in his stomach. And the ice he felt in his veins every time he thought about the fact that in a short year, he and Geralt would be facing the Trial of the Grasses.

“I don’t know.” He said. Because death was not something they spent a lot of time thinking about in Kaer Morhen. Unless it was the death of a monster and they had to know how to harvest it for parts. Death was practical. It was never supposed to be emotional.

Geralt tugged on the blanket and stood up. He offered his hand to Eskel and pulled him to his feet as well.

“Dumb question, I know. Like I said, I was thinking about nothing.”

“Hmm.” Was all Eskel could reply.

The cold in the room and the hunger in his belly suddenly felt a little distant, but not in the way that came from purposefully ignoring them but in a way that made him feel a little floaty. These things were probably nothing too. Nothing of import, and nothing that he couldn’t learn to handle on the Path.

_A Witcher does not fear pain, for a Witcher must know pain like an old friend, and there is nothing frightening about that._ Master Vesemir was always saying. One of his many proverbs.

Usually, Eskel found comfort in the old Witcher’s steady knowledge, but tonight, those words seemed to follow him uneasily as he crawled his way back into bed and tried to get a few more hours of sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Camas is a plant native to Oregon. it was harvested (and still is) by the native people who live in and around the Willamette valley -I'm not sure exactly what the climate of the blue mountains is like but in fantasy logic this plant grows along the lower, warmer regions of the mountains


	7. Trial of the Grasses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Geralt wakes up after undergoing the trial 
> 
> Geralt is 11, Eskel is 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for Witcher trials- they are rough

Slowly the world starts to filter back in.

Where before there was nothing, thoughts begin to form.

Over time, he becomes aware of something other than pain.

A rolling wave of nausea passes through him, but he is able to tell that this is something separate from himself.

Himself. A person.

He is a person. He thinks he has a name.

Another searing wave of agony steals his breath and he passes back under.

Sometime later, though, he resurfaces again.

His name is Geralt, he remembers. The aching pounding in his head is unrelenting, but he is able to tell that he has a head. And below that is a body with arms and legs and fingers and toes. He wriggles them just to be sure. Beyond the overwhelming pain, he is able to _feel_ them move.

Slowly, the pain recedes enough that he can begin to locate it. The burning in his muscles. The lead like weight of his bones. Every breath burns in his lungs like he’s just run the Killer in under twenty minutes. He can feel his heartbeat, slower than he thinks it should be.

That is, slower than it was. If he’s aware, than that means he survived. Geralt passed the Trial of the Grasses.

Geralt opens his eyes.

Everything hurts. He shuts them again with a wince.

A few minutes later, he tries again.

It takes a while for the room to stop spinning enough for him to look around.

He recognizes his room. But it looks different, somehow. changed.

He pushes aside the pounding in his head and the aching in his eyes and focuses.

He can’t lift his head but he can turn it enough to look around.

Their room has always been dim. With small windows and a single fireplace, even during midday the place was always relatively dark. But now everything is _bright_.

The light coming in through the windows is almost painful. The sun beams cut through the space like daggers, and every sparkling mote of dust hangs in the air with crystal clarity. Geralt has to look away.

His eyes wonder over the walls. Something is strange. A new..texture? Color? At first his brain can’t even process it. Mixed in with the familiar gray of the stone is a swirling… something. Something that a reminds him of the course texture of sand, the way the color orange does, but also somehow pink, like the heady perfume of roses. It’s so distracting that he doesn’t notice anything else for a while.

Eventually, he becomes distracted by a high pitched humming noise. Curious, he tries to locate the sound. Roughly, he places it as coming from underneath him.

With a groan of effort, he is able to roll himself out of bed. It takes a while to get his weakened limbs to cooperate enough to shake off the light blanket he was under, but once he does he is able to maneuver into a kneeling position beside his bed.

The movement causes the thin shirt and pants he’s wearing to rub uncomfortably against his skin. The clothes are familiar, he’s worn them before, but they’ve never felt as rough as they do now.

The sound is still buzzing irritably in his ears. He bends down and eventually spots a single moth. It’s crawling around the floor beneath his bed. Every few seconds when it pauses to rub its front legs together, that same high pitched humming fills the air. Geralt has never noticed the sound before.

He sucks in a startled breath and all of a sudden he is overcome with a rush of smells. Before he was distracted by pain and the odd new color in the walls, but now scent is all he can focus on.

The scent of sick is the most powerful, rotten and caustic. He can smell the ash in the fireplace, the wood piled next to it. The dust and old sweat on the bedding is stronger than he ever thought it could be. But underneath that are scents that he has no name for. Something like burnt ash but even less pleasant. And something else that reminds him of biting into an unripe cherry. So sour that it makes his mouth pucker.

Suddenly, he remembers the thirteen boys he went into the Trial with. He remembers Eskel.

In a rush of fear he stumbles to his feet and rushes over to the nearest bed.

A familiar mop of dark hair greets him with a rush of relief. Eskel’s face is thin and covered in a sheen of sweat, his eyes closed in unconsciousness, but he’s alive.

Geralt realizes suddenly that he can hear Eskel’s heart. Beating just as slow as his. And besides that, four other heart beats as well.

Laid out next to Eskel are Szymon, Gweld, Krzysztof, and Jacek. Six, out of thirteen, have survived.

Geralt feels weak kneed and almost collapses where he stands.

No, he has to focus. Six of them were still alive. Six of them still needed him.

He looked around the room. There was a bucket of water and a rag next to one of the beds, but other than that the room looked untouched. No one was here asides from Geralt and his five unconscious brothers.

Bracing himself on the bedpost, he bent over and lightly touched Eskel’s forehead. The boy twitched uncomfortably, but otherwise did not wake. His skin felt hot like a furnace, and when Geralt carefully inhales, the smell of sickness is strong, but not alone. He tries to carefully parse that aside and figure out the rest. The awful smell of burnt ash might be pain, he thinks. And the bitter smell might be fear. Under that though, there was something familiar. Something which he had only smelled before with his head tucked close against Eskel’s shoulder. Something like pine sap or mountain sagebrush, but now gone sharp with something that he couldn’t name. Something like the ozone smell of lightening.

Under his hand, Eskel groaned again, and Geralt straightened with a new goal fixed firmly in his head.

His brothers were in pain. And he needed to go find help.

He still felt uncomfortably weak-kneed, but he walked out of the room as fast as he could in search of a Witcher.

He followed the familiar corridors towards the great hall, but everywhere he kept getting distracted by new smells and sounds, and that strange new color was everywhere, folded into the gray basalt of the keep the way he had seen mineral deposits folded into rocks in the caves around the lake.

Finally, Geralt made it, and with shaking arms almost too weak to lift, he pushed open the great doors to the hall.

A sudden silence met him as he came in. Ten pairs of slitted eyes, almost all of the trainers, turned to regard him in shock.

Geralt stood awkwardly swaying in the entrance, trying to figure out what he had done wrong. Everything was still too bright. It was hard to focus past the array of scents that hit him like an invisible stick. The only thing he could make out was that same ozone scent he had picked up on Eskel.

Finally, Master Rennes stood up and approached. Geralt swallowed. The leader of the School rarely had anything to do directly with the trainees, and when he did it was rarely good news.

Rennes didn’t touch him, but his scent this close was almost physical. Ash and lightening. “What are you doing out of bed, boy?” Rennes barked.

Outside, the wind shifts and suddenly Geralt can hear the shout of voices and the clash of weapons. He flinches, and then squinted in confusion.

Had he broken some rule by getting up? But there had been no one in the room when he woke up, surely he hadn’t been expected to just lay there. “I…” He stammered. And had to clear his throat several times before he could speak. When he did his voice still came out sounding hoarse and painful. “There was no one there. And Eskel and the others, they’re burning up with fever. I thought…”

“It’s only been a day. It will be a while yet before they wake up. A little fever is natural.”

Only a day? Since what? Geralt’s headache was getting worse. Everything was so bright. “But I…”

“But you should not be awake. What are you even doing on your feet?”

Geralt swayed dangerously and stammered, “I came to get help.”

“Help?”

“For my brothers…”

“Rennes. Let him sit. Can’t you see he’s about to topple over?” Master Vesemir thankfully interrupted.

Geralt waited for Rennes’ nod before walking around him towards the nearest table.

Or at least, he meant to walk. His legs get tangled underneath him and all of a sudden he stumbled.

He goes to catch himself but everything feels off. His body is not his own. Somehow, Vesemir appears at his side and catches him before he can face plant onto the stone floor.

“What in hells name are you doing up, wolf? You should be resting.” Vesemir says softly, and guides Geralt to sit at the bench.

Geralt shrugs. He already told them why he came out. His head pounds and every movement seems to scrape his skin raw against the sandpaper that his shirt has become. It’s becoming harder and harder to focus on the hovering faces around him.

Jarosław and Dogbert have joined the crowd standing around him. Dogbert pokes him in the shoulder. The mage smells like swollen rainclouds and mildew. Geralt sneezes in response.

There are words passing over his head, but suddenly it’s becoming hard to focus on them besides the rush of noise from beyond the windows and the pounding of blood in Geralt’s ears. He squints his eyes against the light.

He catches something about “…unheard of” and “…such a speedy recovery”. Someone repeats that it’s only been a day. A day since the Trial, Geralt thinks?

But that doesn’t make sense. Those who survive the Trial take at least a week to get out of bed. Everyone knows this. Surely he’s missing something.

He tries to tell them again, his brothers need help. But no one seems to be listening. The room is spinning and Geralt thinks he can smell at least five different meals sitting at the table, despite the fact that there isn’t a single dish in sight.

The last thing that Geralt hears before passing out is Vesemir’s voice, telling the others to leave him in peace.

When Geralt wakes up next, his brothers are still unconscious. It’s only been a day. But this time Vesemir is sitting in a chair besides him.

A bowl of stew is offered to him and he eats it ravenously. Afterwards, he still feels hungry but Vesemir cautions him against eating too much too soon.

Instead Vesemir quietly talks to him.

He tells him that the Trial itself takes three days. Most of the boys die within the first few hours, those who survive, generally take a full week to fully recover consciousness. Their bodies have undergone a total transformation, on a molecular level. Something like that takes time to recover from.

Geralt awoke only a day after being returned to his room. And on top of that, he made his way down two flights of stairs to the great hall by himself.

The council is very interested in him. But he should worry about that later.

Instead, Vesemir talks him through his new body. He explains how to contract his pupils at will so that the light isn’t so agonizing. He tells him how to focus on the sounds he wants to hear, and not the conversation from two rooms away. He walks him through all the different smells and what they mean.

(The lightning smell means Witcher. Mages smell like storm clouds)

He will learn more once his brothers recover and training resumes, but for now it’s enough not to feel quite so overwhelmed.

Vesemir also tells him about the strange new color in the walls. The sand-and-perfume color that apparently humans can’t see and so don’t have a name for yet. It occurs naturally in certain stones. Sometimes, humans manage to produce the color as a dye, but they only see it as another shade of gray. There is another color, Geralt learns, that he will find in flowers and on the scales of some monsters. This other color is like the sharp sting of a cut or the whistle of an arrow in flight.

Likewise, with sound, he will find himself hearing noises at a much higher vibration than humans can, and things which he once thought were silent will now have sound.

Strength and speed will have to be learned in the following weeks. HIs body is still changing and growing. The mutations take time before the final results will be known.

In the meanwhile, it will take at least a week before his brothers wake up enough to be coherent. Geralt is lucky, in a way. He has seven extra days to recover where no one will expect him to participate in any training or carry out any chores.

He will be there for them, Vesemir promises. When they wake up in pain and confused. Geralt will be of great use.

Geralt thinks about that long after Vesemir leaves.

He remembers being young and feeling invisible. Before he started training, there was no place for him at Kaer Morhen, because he had no use.

But he can be of use now. To his brothers, and to his school. He woke up before any of them did and that means that he will be needed. He will not just be another nameless face, another boy who will die before anyone considers him worth remembering.

Any pain is worth it, Geralt thinks, if it means that he will not be cast aside.

In a room full of his five surviving brothers and eleven empty beds, Geralt tells himself the it will be worth it.


	8. Changes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eskel figures out his new body

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for violence against children

Eskel steps forward with his right, twists from the hips, and brings his sword slashing across from the left. He leans forward to follow through with a lunge, but his weight over balances, he falls back on his left foot and with a cry he feels himself falling. Desperately, he pinwheels his arms trying to regain balance, but his body is already aching after five hours of grueling training and he feels himself fall sideways off the pillar. He lands with a sickening crack as his arm takes the brunt of the fall and breaks.

In a few more weeks their bones will finish mutating and will increase both in density and tensile strength, to the point that such a fall probably wouldn’t have broken anything, but at this stage everything about their bodies is painfully and oddly malleable, and Eskel is sure that the bone has snapped cleanly in two. He sucks in a startled breath but doesn’t scream.

“Eskel! What did I tell you? Don’t fucking lunge before your weight is properly transferred. Do I have to make you practice forms again?” Master Tjold shouts at him from his spot at the beginning of the long line of wooden pillars they’ve been using for practice today. Gweld, Jacek, Geralt and Krzysztof pause in their sparring. Szymon, Eskel’s partner, is already peering down at him in concern.

Eskel fights back the throbbing pain in his arm, the bone has thankfully straightened itself back into place, and forces himself into a kneeling position as Tjold comes storming over.

The burly Witcher glares down at Eskel, but notices the arm and crouches to inspect it with clinical detachment.

“Not a bad break. Take it to Barmin, have him set it in a splint. Then I want you back here. You’ll be running some drills till you get that lunge right.” Tjold instructs him and stands to turn away.

Eskel fights back a whimper at the thought of having to fight with a broken arm, but does his best to stumble to his feet anyways.

(They have slowly been introduced to Witcher potions, but even after the mutations, tolerance has to be built up. But even with a full dose of Swallow, bones take at least two days to fully heal.)

Geralt, however, can never leave well enough alone. He leaps down gracefully from the top of his post, landing neatly like they’re supposed to, and storms over to Tjold, practice sword held firmly in his hand.

“You can’t make him keep practicing! His arm is broken, it needs time to heal or it will set wrong!” Geralt’s voice, like the rest of theirs, is still horse from the Trials. It makes him sound older than he is.

Tjold stops and turns around, a thunderous expression on his face. “I told him to get a splint, did I not? You think a monster will give you even that much consideration? Now get back up there before I break your bones too.”

Geralt sticks his chin out and glares with his new, cat-slitted eyes. “ _A Witcher who fights recklessly past injury is a Witcher who dies_.” His tone makes it obvious that he is quoting Vesemir. “Eskel needs to rest so he can heal properly.”

Tjold doesn’t give another warning. Geralt is fast, but a full grown Witcher is still faster. He steps forward and grabs the front of Geralt’s padded jacket. With a twist he turns him around, before grabbing his arm behind his back and then up, so that the shoulder dislocates with a an awful wet, popping sound. Geralt stumbles with the shock of the pain but doesn’t call out. With a push from Tjold he goes sprawling onto his knees, catching himself with his one good arm. His harsh panting is a match for Eskel’s.

But Tjold’s lesson isn’t over. He draws his steel sword from over his shoulder and uses it to slash, once, across Geralt’s back. Even pulling his stroke, the sharp steel cuts through his gambeson and scores a shallow cut into Geralt’s back.

“You think a monster will give you the chance to get away? If you’re injured in a fight, you keep fighting. Now get up!”

Geralt staggers to his feet with a cry and picks up his sword from where he dropped it earlier. He has to hold it with his non-dominant right hand as his left hangs uselessly by his side.

With a fierce snarl on his face he pivots and attacks Tjold with startling ferocity. But in his state Geralt stands no chance against such a master swordsman, and within seconds, Tjold has him laying flat on the ground with another shallow cut across his chest.

Tjold looks up and raises his voice to address all six of them, “If you enter a fight, you see it through, no matter what. A Wolf School Witcher never walks away from a fight. It is your duty as a professional Witcher to see your contract through to the bitter end. Even through injury and exhaustion, the world will only see your weakness as a failure to do your duty, and they will turn on you for it with hatred and violence.” He looked back down at where Geralt was laying panting in the dust. “You will find that even Vesemir’s platitudes have their shortcomings, in a world that will find any excuse to stab you in the back, caution is best practiced off the battlefield, and not on it. Remember that, _Wolf,_ and maybe you won’t find yourself acting so foolishly in the future.”

Geralt staggers to his feet with a sullen frown fixed on his face, but thankfully he doesn’t say anything more has he pops his shoulder back into place with a grimace of discomfort. Eskel lets out a relieved sigh. Usually, when Geralt tries to argue with the trainers, he gets a lashing. Eskel wonders why Tjold of all Witchers is letting him go easy.

At a barked command, the others still on top the pillars get back to training, Eskel and Geralt are both dismissed to have their injuries looked after. As they make their limping progress across the courtyard, Eskel can’t help but notice the Witchers gathered on the balcony above them. Rennes is standing with Varin and Jarosław, and all three of them have their eyes fixed on Geralt. By the tense line of Geralt’s shoulders, Eskel can tell that he’s seen them too. In the five weeks since they survived the Trial of the Grasses, no one has forgotten the fact that Geralt woke up after only a single day.

(Geralt was taken aside briefly after Eskel woke up, and questioned by the council for several hours. But Eskel knows there was nothing he could say. No one knows why he took the Trial so well, he just did.)

Adjusting to their new bodies is a very steep learning curve. After five days where they were allowed to more or less to work things out at their own pace, they are expected back at training. Vesemir, thankfully, takes them aside early on and brings them to the library, where he and one-legged Mściwoj talk them through the ins and outs of a Witcher’s body. But after that the soft treatment stops.

Getting over the absolutely overwhelming deluge of new scents, and sounds, and colors is hard enough, but figuring out the new limits of their bodies is exhausting.

Everything is foreign. Limbs that they had learned to wield with startling agility under Master Sanya’s tutelage now turn clumsy and unbalanced as their very muscles and bones continue to shift and change. They go from shivering under several blankets to burning up even on chilly nights. As their metabolism adapts, they alternate between ravenous hunger and nausea as their very organs morph to be able to handle the toxicity of Witcher potions.

Strength and speed seem to show up in random bursts. Geralt tries to break into an easy jog once and ends up sprinting head first into a wall. Krzysztof tries to pick up a clay cup during dinner and ends up crushing it in his hand. Eskel tries to gently toss a log onto the fire in their room one night, and ends up heaving it with such strength that it hits the back of the fireplace, breaks in half, and sends a shower of sparks and coals rolling onto the ground, sending everyone scrambling to protect their bedding.

Eventually, lessons in botany, alchemy, monster lore, and the miscellaneous other academic subjects their trainers deem practical enough will pick up again. But just because the worst of the trial is over, doesn’t mean that their bodies aren’t still changing. Eskel swears he can feel his bones growing at night. All six of them gained at least an inch in height in two weeks. A few days into training, Eskel collapses in a coughing fit so bad he blacks out. When he finally resurfaces, it feels like his lungs have expanded to twice their usual size. All of a sudden running the Killer becomes much easier. For three days Gweld’s hands spasm so badly he can hardly lift a sword before the mutation that grants Witcher’s greater dexterity settles in.

Every single day their muscles ache and their bones pound. Through all that, they train until their lungs bleed and their feet blister and their fingers refuse to let go from where they’ve cramped around their blades.

Before the sun is even up, they are expected to run the Killer twice, after which they have to run through a variety of strength and agility exercises before they can come in for breakfast. After that they spend hours in sword practice, either in the ring, on the pillars, or with the pendulums inside. Afternoons are usually spent in the woods. Master Skald teaches them how to apply their new sense to hunting. His favorite lesson is to blindfold them and set them to sparring across the uneven floor, forcing them to use scent and sound to track their opponents.

Evenings are spent in meditation.

The other side affect of the Grasses is that their hormones go absolutely wild. A humans’ natural instinct for fight or flight gets almost completely rewired into fight. Pain from injury becomes oddly distant. The rush of adrenaline during a fight borders on pleasure.

With these changes come unpredictable mood swings. Eskel finds himself flying into a rage over Jacek’s tuneless humming, when before he was always able to block it out. Szymon spends a whole night pacing because he can’t get his body’s restless energy tocalm down.

Mediation helps them learn to bring that all under control. An emotional, impulsive Witcher is dangerous. Witchers like that go bad, and have to be put down like rabid dogs.

Not everything about the mutations is painful though.

As fall turns to winter and the Wolf Witchers return home, Eskel finds himself welcomed into their pack for the first time. Before, as human child he was always kept on the outskirts. Allowed to co-exist with the Witchers during winter, but kept separate by his trainers and by the Witcher’s disinterest. But now that he and his bothers have withstood the most dangerous test, it is safe for the others to get to know him.

As the Witchers return to the keep one by one, Eskel finds himself being embraced and pulled into conversation during any idle moment that he might have. Tucked in close by his elders, he learns to recognize each and every one of them not only by name and face, but by scent as well. A level of recognition that goes beyond his conscious mind and sinks into his bones.

During training Witchers will amble over from their own practice and offer kindly words of advice. And afterwards they invite Eskel and the others into rough games scaling up the side of the keep or chasing each other across the rafters in the hall.

Eskel is already fluent in both Common and Elder, but now he is learning a whole new language. A langue based almost entirely off a Witcher’s ability to hear and smell minute changes in the body. Witchers are as tactile as they are gruff, and communicate more through their bodies than anything else.

But throughout out all of it, a shadow hangs over them. It seems that during every waking moment, whether they’re eating or fighting or sweeping out the stables, at least one council member is watching Geralt.

The worst is Dogbert. The bitter old mage seems to follow the auburn haired Witcher around with his oily eyes, and Geralt grows quiet and terse under the attention. The few times he truly relaxes is when they have an odd evening to themselves or when their training takes them out of the keep. Everywhere within the ancient stone walls, whispers seem to follow him, whispers about how he is different. How he might be special. Eskel knows that nothing good can come of such attention, and hopes that whatever happens it isn’t too much for his friend to bare.


	9. Experiments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Geralt goes through extra trials

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for emotional and physical trauma due to trials 
> 
> Mild smut at end of chapter

Seven weeks after the Trial of the Grasses, Geralt is taken away for an additional round.

It happens early in the morning, before they’ve even finished getting dressed.

Vesemir appears in the doorway to their room. The trainers never enter their room, it’s the one place they have entirely to themselves.

Even now, Vesemir doesn’t cross the threshold, but it’s enough to see him standing there in the doorway to know that something is wrong. His eyes are impossibly sad and his scent is oddly ashamed. 

His eyes catch Geratl’s and he feels a lead weight drop in his stomach. Every overheard whisper and curious look from the last seven weeks come together and tightens around his throat like a noose. Geralt has known for weeks now, that it was only a matter of time before those whispers became something more.

“I’m so sorry, wolf.” Vesemir says, and Geralt knows that whatever is going to happen next will be bad. “But you need to come with me.” Geralt is absolutely certain that Vesemir had to fight to be the one to break the news to him. Apologies do not come easy at Kaer Morhen, and he doubts anyone else would have even bothered.

Vesemir doesn’t wait for an answer, but turns and walks out. Gweld and Jacek stare at him in shocked silence. Szymon makes a confused noise. Krzysztof frowns in concern. But the worst is the look on Eskel’s face.

Out in the corridor, Geralt can hear Vesemir waiting. There is no time to say goodbye. And even if there was, saying goodbye is not something which Witcher’s ever learn how to do.

Geralt turns and follows Vesemir out the door.

With every step down the familiar stone halls, Geralt feels less and less anchored to his body. As they descent to the ground level, Geralt has a sudden flash to when he was six and Eskel was seven, and they stole a shield from the armory and went sledding down the stairs. He remembers how the shield got stuck halfway down, but their momentum sent them tumbling down in a heap of limbs. The bruises from that incident lasted for days.

In his mind, Geralt sees seven-year-old Eskel wearing the same awful expression as the thirteen-year-old Eskel he left in the dormitory above.

All of a sudden his lungs grow tight.

_Don’t think about that,_ he reminds himself, and focuses on his breathing.

Jarosław is waiting for them at the entrance to the basement. His expression is perfectly neutral when Geralt meets his gaze, and he smells like nothing but mild curiosity.

Out of the corner of his eye, Geralt catches an aborted movement as if Vesemir were reaching for his arm. But a cold look from Jarosław stops him. Vesemir is not on the council. Jarosław is. He has authority here.

Against his will, Geralt imagines throwing himself into Vesemir’s arms. He imagines himself small as he was at five, when he would go barreling full speed down the corridors only to be plucked from above by Vesemir’s strong arms. He imagines those arms coming down from above and lifting him from the cold stone walls of Kaer Morhen forever.

_No! You're stronger than that._ Geralt clenches his hands so tight he can hear the bones creaking. He doesn’t look when Vesemir turns and leaves.

Wordlessly, he follows Jarosław down the narrow stairs to the basement. Every step tears something in Geralt’s mind. His limbs feel weak and for one wild moment he thinks that maybe if he faints now they won’t make him go through with this.

_No!_ He tells himself. _This is your duty. This is how you make yourself useful._

There’s no room to be worrying about whether or not he’ll make it. He learned very early on that the only way to survive is to not think about it. Any hope is false hope and worrying about death is only courting insanity.

He can’t think about his room with the familiar scents of his brothers, He can’t think about the great hall in winter, full of Witchers with their wild stories and rough jokes. He can’t think of Eskel’s face, laughing in the middle of the night when they should be sleeping but can’t stop talking.

With the final step into the basement, Geralt carefully makes his mind go blank. He focuses everything on the simple task of putting one foot in front of the other. Nothing else exists right now, outside of his duty.

Dogbert is waiting for them in the cool subterranean room, fiddling with some last minute adjustments to the array of potions he has displayed on his work bench.

Everything smells like damp rock, and mildew, and potions, and pain. The first time Geralt came down here he had only a human’s weak nose, so he focuses on that memory instead of the reality before him.

No one talks as Geralt strips and lays himself out on the table. His limbs shake uncontrollably as Jarosław straps him in. But in his mind everything is still. Everything is very, very far away.

When the first scream rips its way through his throat, he doesn’t even recognize it as his own voice. After that everything goes blank.

The first time they take Geralt away they keep him for five days. Three days to lay twisting and screaming, strapped to the table. Two days to lay shivering in recovery.

They don’t bring him back to the dormitory like they did last time. The other boys are to remain focused on their training, and Geralt laying unconscious in his bed would only be a distraction.

On the sixth day, Geralt returns.

He is brought in at breakfast. A hush follows him as he trails slowly behind Jarosław, who deposits him at his table.

Geralt looks impossibly thin. Under his thin cotton shirt and trousers, Eskel swears he can see his ribs. His eyes are sunken and he hardly looks up when his brothers move in close around him and begin to pester him with questions. There are no visible changes that Eskel can see, but Geralt’s scent is thick with something new, sharper than the usual ozone smell of Witchers, and his heart sounds impossibly heavy inside his chest.

Geralt ignores them. In point of fact, he ignores everything. Eskel offers him a bowl of oats, prepared with a healthy spoonful of honey and all the dried fruit he could find, just the way Geralt likes it. Geralt doesn’t even acknowledge it.

Eskel doesn’t know what he was expecting. When he woke up from the Grasses, Geralt was already there, awake and vibrant and already bursting with a Witcher’s tireless energy. Watching Geralt be taken away was like watching someone walk away with one of his severed limbs. He thought, when he first saw Geralt standing in the entrance to the hall, that he would have his limb back now. But everything still feels off balanced and wrong.

During training that morning, and for several days following, Geralt is taken aside and trained separately. While Vesemir takes them through their usual paces, Tjold spars with Geralt off to the side, often under the watchful gaze of several other Witchers.

Vesemir is a good teacher, and does his best to keep them occupied, but Eskel can’t help but feel like he’s been cut in two, and half of him is across the courtyard with Geralt.

The changes that they’ve all experienced, and recovered from, over the last several weeks seem to be renewed in Geralt. He stumbles where once he was graceful, and lays panting for breath halfway through an exercise he could finish with ease before. All the while he grows impossibly thinner as he keeps refusing food.

At night, Eskel wakes to find Geralt shivering in his bed, his skin impossibly hot to the touch and his breathing wheezing painfully in his lungs when Eskel presses his head into Geralt’s chest.

He tries, desperately, to sooth Gerat’s bitten off sounds of pain. He holds his hands over Geralt’s eyes to block even the tiniest bit of light and tries his best to remember the tune of an old lullaby, so that Geralt can focus on the sound of his voice and not the the creaking of the stones that he swears is keeping him up at night.

It takes him two days to get Geralt talking, but even then there is a hesitancy there that Geralt never had before. Eskel catches him flinching, just barely, anytime one of the trainers pays him too much attention.

(It doesn’t help that the Witchers home for winter won’t stop staring at him with curiosity or that the younger boys won’t stop whispering behind his back, forgetting that Geralt can hear everything that they say.)

On the practice field, Tjold doesn’t bother showing any mercy and pushes Geralt as hard as always. After five days of relentless training, Geralt collapses to the ground coughing up blood, but when he recovers, it’s like the final piece of a puzzle clicking into place. Everything just works better.

Geralt becomes faster and stronger seemingly over night. When Tjold attacks, Geralt attacks back and keeps the master sword trainer on the defensive for several minutes. It becomes impossible to sneak up on Geralt, all of his senses heightened beyond belief.

Finally, after a week, his appetite returns, and he finally begins to gain back all the weight that he lost. His temperature returns to normal and he actually sleeps through the night.

Geralt is allowed to rejoin his brothers during training, but Eskel still watches with a knotted stomach every time that he is called up to Rennes’ office. Whatever those mutations did to him, not everything is visible, and the council spends endless hours poking and prodding at Geralt. Geralt comes back from those sessions looking shellshocked and fragile, in a way that Eskel feels helpless to address. In the few, stuttering sentences that Eskel can pull out of him, Geralt tells him that the trainers won’t tell him what they find, but their quiet satisfaction is somehow worse.

When spring returns and the keep empties out again, Eskel thinks that things can finally return to normal. Geralt is still quiet, but he walks with a familiar spring in his step and laughs at Krzysztof’s stupid jokes and helps Eskel replace all the soap in the hot springs with animal fat and otherwise returns more or less to his cheerful self.

Summer turns hot and dry and they take every opportunity to rush down to the lake and cool off. A nest of fork-tails move into the area and Master Skald takes them out into the mountains for a week, standing watch as Eskel and the rest of his brothers pit themselves against the flying beasts. Gweld gets a massive slash across his back from a tail he was too slow to dodge. Szymon almost gets thrown off a cliff. Geralt somehow manages to get stuck in a tree after deciding that the best way to attack a fork-tail was to jump on its back and kill it in mid flight. Eskel laughs at him the whole way back to the keep, but dutifully helps him pick pine needles out of his hair.

Autumn rolls around and the next batch of boys are slated to go through the the Trial of the Grasses.

On the morning of the equinox, Geralt is taken away again.

This time, there are four other boys who will be joining him. Krzysztof with his stupid jokes and sgruprising strength. Borys with his starting healing ability from the year above theirs and Merrick who recently passed the Trial of the Dreams with startling alacrity.

This time Eskel isn’t there when it happens. He gets back to their room that night and Geralt is simply gone. So is Krzysztof. An empty pit opens up in Eskel’s stomach. He thinks he might be sick. The look on Jacek and Gweld’s faces tells him everything he needs to know.

Eskel doesn’t remember running down the halls to the basement entrance. He catches himself up against the doorframe, panting even though he’s only run a short distance. The door is five inches of thick oak and banded in steel, but he pounds on the door so hard he thinks he’ll bring the whole thing down.

“Stop it!” Eskel shouts. “Stop it! You can’t take him!”

His shouts have brought other Witchers into the hall. Strong arms reach around him and pull him back from the door. Eskel fights as hard as he can, screaming in inarticulate rage.

“Eskel! Eskel, you need to calm down!” It takes him a long time to register the voice, and even longer to recognize it. Vesemir is holding him against his chest while he screams and shakes. “Calm down, boy! There’s nothing to be done.”

“No! You can’t take him! Y..you can’t!” He repeats, his voice breaking down the middle. Vesemir is a coward. A coward who won’t stand up for the one thing that fucking matters. Geralt is the best student Kaer Morhen has ever had. Eskel knows this instinctively. Nothing could ever shake his faith in his brother. Eskel knows that Geralt wants to be a Witcher with everything he has, and they’re throwing him away like so much refuse. Eskel lunges at the door again and Vesemir twists his hips and throws Eskel onto the ground with a neat hold around his chest, pinning his arms to his side. Eskel heaves one more time before collapsing, panting against the floor. He’s still shaking, but his fight has become directionless and he is easily held in place. “Y…you c…can’t take him. He’s mine.” Eskel can’t remember the last time he cried.

Vesemir keeps talking, but after that Eskel refuses to listen. Distantly, filtered through almost a mile of thick stone and locked doors, Eskel hears a scream.

It takes a week for Geralt to recover. Eskel only knows this because Vesemir pulls him aside one day and tells him. The other four boys died. Geralt survived.

It’s another week after that before Eskel gets to see him.

They’re keeping him for observation, is what Vesemir tells him. As if this is supposed to make him feel better. These latest mutagens were extremely experimental. There’s no telling what kind of results they will have. No telling how stable, or unstable, Geralt might be.

That night, Eskel dreams of the basement. But instead of the agonizing fire of the Trial, he dreams of the dark. He dreams of the wet smell of mildew and the cold of the stone and feels impossibly alone and small. Geralt survived, and they’re keeping him isolated like he’s some dangerous new creature they want to observe.

When Geralt finally returns, he is irrevocably changed.

His eyes have changed from amber to molten, metallic gold. His skin, while always pale, has gone practically white and his freckles, which were so entertaining to count when they were younger, are gone.

His hair, which was always auburn and curly, is growing in white and straight at the roots.

Geralt refuses to speak. For days he is so silent that Eskel is worried he has gone permanently mute. When Eskel is finally able to coax a few words from him, he sees slightly elongated eye teeth, not enough to impede his speech but obviously fangs non the less.

Geralt moves with a careful, painful caution, fighting to control the way his body shakes with pain almost all the time. During the days his eyes are lost and confused. At night, however, he lays perfectly still and wide awake.

Whatever changed inside, whatever the mutations did to him, non of the trainers will tell them. Just like last time, Geralt is taken aside almost every day for a week and poked and prodded and put through one training exercise after another. Every night he comes back looking more fragile than before.

It takes two weeks before Geralt finally starts to recover in the way that means that the worst of the mutations have finally settled. But once he does, Eskel comes to suspect that even Dogbert doesn’t fully understand what it is that they have created. He’s training against Tjold when it first happens. Geralt moves and all of a sudden the best swords master in Kaer Morhen is laying flat on his back.

There is a pack of wolves that live near Kaer Morhen, and Eskel has seen them several times while out hiking. He knows exactly how powerful they can be, and how viciously effective they are in their attacks. Geralt moves exactly like a wolf going in for the kill.

After the second round of mutations, he came back faster and stronger. This time he came back more vicious. It’s like the mutations have changed something beyond the physical, and instead of moving like someone trained to fight, he moves like someone born to it.

That night, Eskel wakes to the sound of panicked breathing.

Before he can think it through he is out of his own bed and is pulling back the covers on Geralt’s. His brother is curled into a tight ball and sounds like he is on the verge of collapse. His scent is terrified and bitter and salty with tears.

Eskel cautiously touches Geralt’s shoulder, and almost jumps when Geralt flinches back violently. But Geralt doesn’t leave and Eskel isn’t told to go. Slowly, he brushes his fingers through Geralt's hair, combing out the sweat soaked strands that have gone almost completely white by now. With a halting voice, Eskel starts to hum. An old tune that he only half remembers from a time before Kaer Morhen. Slowly the panicky breaths begin to smooth out. The shivering below him starts to ease In the stillness between them.

Without thinking, Eskel leans forward and presses a chaste kiss to Gerat’s exposed neck. Just the barest press of lips, but it’s something they’ve never done before.

For a second, Eskel holds in a nervous breath, but then Geralt lets out a sigh and his whole body relaxes to press back into Eskel’s, and suddenly he can breath again. Feeling braver, Eskel presses another kiss against the top of Geralt’s head.

(After the first Trial, Vesemir sat them down for a talk, and with his face as red as a beet, briefly explained about kissing and sex. Since then Eskel has thought about kissing a lot, but this is the first time he has ever tried it.)

Somehow, he ends up draped over Geralt’s body with the other boy laying on his back. Their breath is warm between them, and the first brush of lips on lips is so soft as to be non-existent. Beneath him, Geralt’s body begins to rumble with a familiar sound.

Purring is one of the strangest side affects of the mutations. Growing up amongst Witchers, Eskel has heard them growling and rumbling and purring at each other every winter since he was six. But it was still rather startling, the first time he got over excited in a fight and let out something between a yip and a chirp, or when his annoyed grumble came out as an actual growl, or when a simple hug had him purring deep in his chest.

The last sound quickly became intrinsically soothing however. Undeniable proof that he and his brothers were safe and warm and for once relatively free from pain. After the additional mutations, and Geralt’s new withdrawn and skittish nature, Eskel was worried he would never hear that sound again. Now he has it shaking the chest that is pressed directly against his, so close that he can feel the vibrations traveling through Geralt into him until he can’t help but start purring back.

The second kiss is firmer and leaves a pleasant tingling sensation even after it ends. The third is even better. Slowly, the fear scent that was souring Geralt’s natural smell of juniper and woodsmoke turns warm and sweet. Something which Eskel has only ever smelled in vague, weak doses. Something similar to what he smells from other boys or from himself, the few times he’s snuck off to see what it feels like to wrap a hand around his cock. Whatever it is, it’s quickly becoming his new favorite scent. Instinctively he presses his face into the space between Geralt’s shoulder and neck, where the scent is the strongest. He is no longer sure entirely what it is he is doing. Only that it feels good and it seems to be helping Geralt calm down.

He presses a kiss into the delicate skin of Geralt’s throat, and then bites it, very gently. Geralt’s purr turns into a low moan, and his arms wind themselves like two bands of iron across Eskel’s back, pulling him firmly against Geralt.

Everything outside of the tangled mess of their two bodies seems to fade. Nothing but the rising warmth in his belly. Or the gentle rocking motion that seems to make it grow. His breathing gets uneven and he fists his hands into Geralt’s shirt. Helplessly pushing his hips down.

He can feel himself harden, and the feeling of Geralt’s own hardening cock rubbing against his is enough to make his mind go just a little bit blank.

Everything feels so good.

Below him, Geralt’s breath catches, and stutters. His back arches off the bed and he comes with a quiet sigh between them. Eskel echoes him not a moment later.

Both of them are shaking as they come down from their high. Slowly, the sound of their sleeping brothers filter back in. So does the uncomfortable stickiness in their pants. Eskel rolls to the side. He thinks they should maybe try and clean themselves up. The air around them smells thick with that same warm-sweet smell. Like honey and that odd spicy cinnamon powder that is carefully hoarded in the pantry.

Geralt turns to Eskel and smiles, big and sloppy like he hasn’t seen him do in so long. His golden eyes catch the light of the banked fire and reflect it back with a blaze. His whole body feels pleasantly heavy, and the last thing that Eskel thinks before he falls into sleep is that Geralt’s pointy teeth are oddly endearing when he smiles wide enough to show them.


	10. Lambert

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lambert arrives at Kaer Morhen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, this chapter gave me so much trouble.

The boy announced his arrival at Kaer Morhen with a feral scream.

Geralt and Eskel had just finished cleaning out the stables, and had time to kill before they had to be in the library for a wonderfully dull lesson on curse breaking, so they had wondered up to the ramparts of the inner curtain wall. Ostensibly they were up there for the view. In reality they were much more interested in kissing.

(After Jacek made the mistake of getting a little carried away with one of the older trainees in the library, Mściwoj had given them all a talk similar to the one that Vesemir had given them before, except that his version had a lot more to do with acceptable locations rather than acceptable actions, which had firmly impressed upon the young Witchers the virtues of avoiding the library and had led to Geralt and Eskel seeking out increasingly interesting locations, such as the ramparts, whenever they felt the need ‘practice’ their newfound sexual interests.)

As caught up as Geralt and Eskel were in each other, it was impossible to miss the angry shriek that split through the still summer air. They pulled apart far enough to stare at each other in bewilderment before their brains could recognize the sound as a human voice. Specifically, that of a young human.

Another look was all that was needed to know that they were of the same mind, and they both turned swiftly to race along the walls until they had a clear view of the main gates.

It was late summer, which meant that various Witchers had been arriving with one or more boys in tow. Witcher Darren had obviously just arrived, and was still standing besides his horse in the courtyard. In front of him was the usual group who came out to inspect new boys, Rennes because he was the head of the school and it was his duty and Vesemir and Barmin because they were genuinely interested in meeting the new younglings.

(Incidentally, that was also why they weren’t allowed to train the pre-trial boys because it was fairly obvious that they would get too attached when so many of them were bound to die during the Grasses.)

However, rather than the usual tableau of stern Witchers and scared looking child, the Witchers all had various expressions of shock and frustration. The child, who was small with dark, badly cropped hair had obviously made a break for it, trying to run back out the front gate only to have been snatched up by Rennes. The one-eyed Witcher was intimidating even when he was being friendly, when he was scowling even Geralt snapped to attention. Apparently, this new child was unfazed, because Geralt and Eskel arrived just in time to see him twist and bite Rennes so hard that the experienced Witcher dropped him in shock. The child, who couldn’t have been older than six and was small for his age, was on his feet screaming and yelling obscenities that no six-year-old child should know.

Rennes, who was always stern and always aloof was staring down at the angry boy as if he was faced with an unfamiliar and particularly frustrating monster. Darren looked too tired to be properly annoyed. Vesemir looked torn between amusement and annoyance, but Barmin was making absolutely no attempt to hide his raucous laughter.

Geralt and Eskel exchanged startled grins. There had been temperamental children before. Boys who hid their fear in anger, but neither of them had ever seen one quite this vocal. His scent, when it wafted up on the light breeze, was sharp as crushed mustard seeds. Whoever he was, he was sure to be interesting, for however long he managed to survive at Kaer Morhen.

Lambert was just as loud over dinner as he had been during his arrival. He loudly refused the food that was placed in front of him, confusing the other three boys who had already been brought to the keep that year and were busily shoveling as much food into their mouths as they could.

Eventually, it was old Barmin who had to limp over to his table and convince him to eat, after Sanya’s threats of violence failed.

Watching the dark eyed child turn sullenly towards his bowl, Geralt didn’t understand why he felt a shiver travel down his spine. Somehow, he understood that refusing to eat was a sign of defeat, and it didn’t fit with the boy who was brave enough to bite a full-grown Witcher. It was none of his business though, who survived and who didn’t, so Geralt forced it out of his mind and returned to his own meal.

He had long ago learned not to grow attached to anyone who hadn’t yet undergone the Grasses.

Summer had passed into the fall and Winter had once again seized the keep in its bitter grip, and Lambert swiftly managed to make a reputation for himself as an absolute hellion.

The boy was only six, but already he had a tongue as sharp as any blade and was so prickly that even just standing too close to him could invite a scathing tongue lashing.Lambert’s cohort was relatively small with only nine boys in it, and so they were often combined with the cohort above theirs for training. Lambert had made it very clear early on that everyone in the keep was fair game to him, and it didn’t matter if you were older, larger or stronger than him, if he saw a chance he was going to go after you.

For the most part, Geralt and Eskel found it amusing. It certainly gave them something to talk about on long winter nights when the same old arguments over the best way to bait a wyvern grew old and boring.

He was without a doubt the angriest child Geralt had ever seen. Lambert took every opportunity he had to rant loudly to anyone in his vicinity at the great injustice that had been done him when he was brought to Kaer Morhen to become a Witcher. It was, honestly, a sentiment which greatly confused Geralt. Justice and the question of choice had never been a concern of his. By the time he was old enough to really understand that growing up in a keep full of Witchers was highly unusual, and that most boys in fact did not spend their childhoods preparing to become Witchers themselves, he had already been too far along his path to ever even consider looking back. To be anything other than what he was was so far out of the realm of possibility that it was almost ridiculous, and it made Geralt highly uncomfortable, any time the topic was brought up. To imagine a different life was to question his purpose as a Witcher, and therefor the bedrock upon which all of his beliefs rested.

It made Geralt scowl every time he heard that familiar, whining voice echoing through the halls, proclaiming loudly all the ways that becoming a Witcher was wrong. It was confusing and painful and he wanted it to stop.

Eskel definitely noticed him noticing, but thankfully didn’t give him a hard time about it. Eskel always knew when to push and when to leave well enough alone. Life outside of Kaer Morhen was one of the few things which the two of them had trouble talking about. It wasn’t that Geralt wasn’t curious about what humans were like or what life was like in a village or a town, but it was just that any talk of life _before_ Kaer Morhen made Geralt feel somehow lacking or inadequate, when the only thing he had was a vague memory of long red hair and a soft embrace.

It all came to a head one spring evening. The Witchers had all left for the Path, and as usual everyone else was still adjusting to suddenly having much fewer people in the keep. The halls all seemed emptier and quieter without the raucous of thirty odd Witchers, though Vesemir and the other trainers would all attest that the trainees managed to generate plenty of noise on their own.

Geralt and his brothers had the evening off for once, and he was wondering outside, thinking that he might take advantage of the first evening that wasn’t unbearably cold to spend some time outside when he came across Eskel with Lambert of all people in the courtyard.

Curious, he wondered over and realized that Eskel was demonstrating basic sword forms. Geralt stopped in the shadow of some stacked crates and watched.

Eskel was a good teacher, he realized. Patient and firm, and with that calm steady focus that Geralt always relied on. It was different somehow, though, to see that focus from the outside, instead of having it directed at him. Geralt never really thought about it, just accepted that no matter how much chaos he generated, Eskel would always be there to help him pick up the pieces. He felt a slow dopey grin spread across his face, watching as Eskel’s solid body moved through the transition between the third and fourth form. No matter how much he ate, Geralt was still whipcord thin and had yet to put on the muscle weight of a Witcher, but Eskel was already starting to fill out, his shoulders broad and sturdy over a thick chest. Solid and steady as a rock.

Lambert, however, was looking less than impressed, to the point that even Eskel’s famed patience seemed to be slipping. As he struggled to copy Eskel’s smooth movements, he narrated the whole thing with a loud list of complaints.

“This is stupid. How’r these stupid forms gonna help? You can’t fucking fight in slow motion.” Lambert whined as he stumbled through a pivot and overbalanced on the thrust.

Geralt grinned as Eskel sighed in frustration. They had obviously been at this for a while. “I already told you. The forms are for teaching basic concepts. You do them over and over again until your body has them memorized, then you speed them up for actual fighting. If you can’t do them slowly you’ll never be able to do them fast. Right foot. I told you, put your weight on your right foot for the pivot.”

“I am putting my weight on the right foot. This is just stupid and it isn’t working.”

“It is working. You’re just…augh. Do it again.”

“No! I..”

Geralt stepped out of the shadows towards the bickering pair. “Eskel is right. You need to pay attention to where your weight is before you move. Footwork is the foundation of all fighting.”

Eskel grinned in surprised joy at Geralt’s appearance, but Lambert just scowled harder.

“It’s still stupid. And I don’t need your help.”

Eskel threw up his hands in exasperation while Geralt frowned. Were all kids this stubborn? “It’s not stupid. It’s just how it works.”

“Oh yeah? Says who?” Lambert demanded.

“Geralt…” Eskel warned, but Geralt just frowned harder. There had to be a way to explain this.

“Says common sense. It’s..” He turned to Eskel for help but Lambert interrupted.

“It’s stupid. And none of your business anyways. I don’t need your help.”

Geralt’s frown turned into a scowl. What the fuck was this kids problem?

“Yes you do. That pivot looks awful.” In the background he could hear Eskel sighing in frustration, but at this point he was too annoyed to back down.

“You look awful. I don’t need your help!” Lambert waved his practice sword for emphasis. Angry at having a wooden sword shoved in his face, Geralt grabbed it and tore it out of Lambert’s hands. Embarrassment was not something that Geralt was used to feeling.

“Fine! But then listen to Eskel, you little shit.”

“Don’t tell me what to do!”

Geralt really, really wanted to know how no one had killed this child yet. How could someone so small be so frustrating? He had only been trying help, and somehow within five seconds he wanted to throttle the kid instead.

Eskel imploringly turned to Geralt, hoping to diffuse the disaster he could see approaching, but Geralt was already opening his mouth to retort.

“I’ll tell you whatever I want. Didn’t anyone tell you to listen to your elders?”

“Your not my elder. You’re just an ugly hag. Now give me back my sword!”

“No!”

“Both of you, enough!” Eskel interrupted, “Geralt, give him back his sword.”

Feeling betrayed, Geralt turned to gape at his brother. “I’m just trying to help.”

Lambert smirked and stuck out his tongue. Geralt made a rude gesture in response.

“And I think we’ve all done enough damage for tonight. Lambert, you did good, go wash up. Geralt, come on, let’s see what the others are up to.”

Muttering under his breath about bratty kids who didn’t know how to keep their mouth shut, Geralt returned the sword and turned on his heel. Though he fumed about the incident the rest of the night, and complained at length to Eskel and Gweld about the ungrateful twit, he somehow managed to miss the parting look that Lambert gave him, and the retribution that it promised.

It started when Lambert somehow managed to dump a whole spoonful of salt into Geralt’s stew without him noticing.

In retaliation, Geralt filled Lambert’s bed with sand.

The next day everything was suspiciously quiet. Until the evening was interrupted by a furious shout when Geralt returned to his room after dinner only to find that his freshly polished sword was now covered in a sticky coating of honey.

The next morning Lambert woke up to find that all of his things, every single stitch of clothing as well as his dagger, had been taken from his room and hidden in the rafters of the great hall. Wearing nothing but his small clothes, Lambert practically brought the whole keep running with his shouts when he discovered that he was too small to make the climb to retrieve his things.

A few days passed, and Geralt grew smug thinking he had finally won. That was until he was climbing out of the baths after a long day of training only to be hit in the face with a bag full of chicken feathers. The bag broke open on impact, and covered his wet skin in a liberal coating of downy chicken feathers. There was a beat of silence as everyone held their breath. Eskel and Gweld tried desperately to hold in their laughter while the younglings stared in amazement at the sheer daring of their feisty brother. From the mass of feathers that Geralt had become, a pair of golden eyes peered out at Lambert, whose grinning face went comically pale as he realized the danger he was in. A split second later he was off, slipping on the wet floor of the baths as he struggled to escape from Geralt’s lightening fast lunge.

Encumbered by the feathers sticking to every inch of him, Geralt impossibly missed his first attempt, and Lambent was able to make it all the way to the entrance of the baths before he was swept off his feet and a rough fist was rubbed painfully into his scalp. He shrieked a string of colorful curse words while Geralt growled loudly and Eskel and Gweld burst out laughing.

Of course, it was exactly at that moment that Vesemir walked in, looking like he wanted nothing so much as a quiet bath after a long day of teaching, only to be met with a scrambling, shrieking mass of feathers and flaying limbs and curse words.

“Enough!” Vesemir’s bellow silenced the entire room. Geralt and Lambert froze in place, and two pairs of worried eyes, one golden and one brown, looked up from their tangled mess. “Geralt! Why is it that every time there’s trouble I find you involved? Lambert! Why am I not surprised to find you antagonizing your elders? Eskel, Gweld! If you don’t stop snickering I’ll be happy to find a punishment for you as well.”

“It’s not my fault! This damn brat-!”

“Get off me you rock-brained slug! I’m not-!”

Their bickering was the last straw. Vesemir simply did not have the patience to deal with this tonight. “Stop. Out! Everyone out. This bath is officially off limits to students for the rest of the night!”

A cry of outrage went up amongst the boys still in the hot springs.

“Did I stutter? No. I said everyone out!” Vesemir cut them off, and watched carefully as everyone begrudgingly climbed out of the water and gathered up their clothes. Some escaped feathers still floated in the water or clung to the wet floor, but Vesemir apparently was more interested in peace and quiet than having them cleared up right away.

Geralt and Lambert had disentangled from each other, but still crouched unsure on the floor in front of Vesemir. Eskel hovered uncertainly in the doorway, having gathered up Geralt’s clothes for him.

Vesemir heaved a deep sigh, closing his eyes has he gathered the rest of his tattered patience, and looked down at the two young pups quivering at his feet. His life was filled with plenty of hardships and pain. He loved every child that came into Kaer Morhen and mourned every time that he lost more than he got to keep. But sometimes dealing with the sheer amount of chaos that a keep full of Witchers-in-training could generate made it difficult to remember why he bothered on breaking the age old adage that Witchers Did Not Care.

“Both of you will report to me first thing after breakfast. I’m sure I can find plenty of ways to keep you busy. Since apparently you have so much free time you can’t keep yourselves from getting into trouble. But now I want you out of my sight. Go!”

Geralt and Lambert both scrambled to their feet, and without a word hurried out of the baths.

The next day, the two of them were forced to take over whatever disgusting or frustrating chore that Vesemir could think of. Suddenly relieved of their duties, Eskel and the others watched in amusement as Geralt grumbled his way through scrubbing the kitchen floors, cleaning the chimneys, and pickling the foul smelling kikimore livers that constituted one of the more vile potions ingredients. All the while he had to wrangle the chaotic ball of energy that was Lambert into actually doing something more useful than just stomping around and swearing. By the time night fell, Geralt had barely enough energy to drag himself into bed, though he did valiantly rally himself to flip Eskel a rude signal when he couldn’t stop sniggering at Geralt’s expense. But really, Eskel couldn’t be blamed. It wasn’t often that the great and mighty Geralt met his match, and was brought low by a single six year old to boot. Eskel was going to have blackmail material for decades.

To everyone’s surprise, however, the next day found Lambert begrudgingly letting Geralt help him through his sword forms, and despite everyone’s expectations, Geralt seemed to have discovered a before unheard of well of patience as he carefully demonstrated the basic forms over and over again until Lambert was performing them with ease.

After that, despite the fact that training and their various duties generally kept the pre-trial boys separate from those who had already undergone them, Eskel grew accustomed to seeing a small, brown haired shadow following Geralt from time to time, and it wasn’t unusual to find the two of them sniping at each other in the yard whenever their free time aligned. It was an odd pairing to be sure, like fire and alcohol, but somehow Eskel wasn’t surprised. Even when he had to play referee between the two, he could see the way that Lambert looked up to the white haired Witcher, and it was impossible to miss how Geralt always seemed to make time for the prickly boy.

(In years to come, the prank war would spontaneously erupt back into being, whenever Geralt’s drama got to be too much for Lambert or Lambert’s attitude got under Geralt’s skin. And then everyone else would be kept on their toes as the keep was transformed into a war zone until one or more of the senior Witchers put it to rest. It became almost a tradition of sorts, and some of the more creative pranks went down as Witcher legends.) 

The next winter Eskel woke with a choked back yell from some strange disjointed dream. Nightmares were nothing new for anyone at Kaer Morhen. Sometimes they were vivid and clear as day, other times they were just strange shadows and a piercing sense of dread. There was no point in dwelling on it, only getting over it.

Eskel only had to wait a few seconds before Geralt was climbing into his bed next to him.

They didn’t need words between them, so Geralt simply pressed his shoulder against Eskel’s until his breathing evened out and he could relax back into him. They had long ago stopped asking what each other dreamt of.

Together they sat and listened to the night sounds of the keep. Their room was filled with five steady heartbeats and Gweld’s gentle snoring. Beyond their walls, they could hear the soft footsteps of a Witcher too restless to sleep and the constant blowing of the wind twisting around the stone fortress on its way down the mountain. If Eskel concentrated he could hear the sounds of gentle conversation coming from a room a floor above theirs and he imagined two Witchers pressed side by side in a bed exactly like he was with Geralt.

Eskel always knew when Geralt was using his heightened senses to hear things even he couldn’t, so he traced a single finger over the shell of Geralt’s ear. A silent request.

Geralt obliged, and leaned in to whisper into Eskel’s ear. “Hmm, lots of snoring, and.… someone keeps hiccuping in their sleep, I think.…an owl just landed on the roof.” He cocked his head, “and Mściwoj is talking to himself again. Something about bees?”

Eskel laughed soundlessly. Mściwoj was ancient, and had never been quite right in the head after the loss of his leg. But he made an excellent librarian.

“And down below…one of the boys is singing. Well, humming. A tune I don’t know.”

Eskel closed his eyes and tried to listen. He thought he could just make out the faintest tune, though it was hard to separate it from the whistling wind. Many of the younger boys were rarely quiet in their early days at Kaer Morhen, though usually by this time of year they had all settled down enough not to cry their way through the night. He wondered which one of them was up. And if they were singing to themselves or for someone else.

A thought occurred to him. One that had been curling around the back of his mind for months and which he finally felt was right to say. Geralt could be as skittish as a colt when it came to discussions he didn’t want to have, so sometimes it was best to ambush him. “The feral one, Lambert. You like him.” Eskel said. He opened his eyes and watched the flickering embers in the hearth.

“What? No I don’t.”

“He reminds me of you, I think.”

Geralt grunted. “We’re nothing alike. Lambert is a prick.”

“No, really. Granted, you were never quiet as loud, but you share his penchant for trouble. And you both can’t help but drive the trainers up the wall.” Eskel smirked. “And you like him cause’s a prick.”

“Hm?”

“Cause he never backs down, no matter what. And he doesn’t take injustice laying down. Just like you.”

“The fuck does that mean?”

“it means that half the time you get in trouble its cause you’re standing up for someone else. You’ve never been able to leave well enough alone, and neither can he. He…doesn’t take his fate laying down. I know that…”

“Hmm.”

“Yes, I know. We don’t talk about it. But Geralt, he didn’t have a choice. None of us did, least of all you.”

“Is this about the Trials again?”

“It’s just… When you…when they took you, and you didn’t even fight..”

“Eskel!”

“I know. It’s your duty. But it’s ok, you know. Not to want what they want for you. To want something different.” Eskel spoke the last bit into his knees. It wasn’t a thought that was often spoken aloud at Kaer Morhen. Too much potential torment lay down the road of playing out what-ifs.

“Hmm.” Geralt grunted, he hated when Eskel got maudlin like that. “You’re still wrong. Lambert’s an ass. I’m nice.”

“You’re nice-ish. When you want to be.” Eskel retorted, and laughed when the dark mood lifted.

Geralt growled low in his throat and gently tackled Eskel onto the pillow. He bit playfully at Eskel’s shoulder, who squirmed in response. Eskel hummed as he considered, and absently buried his hand in Geralt’s silvery hair, scratching at his scalp in the way that made Geralt go boneless against him. Geralt released his shoulder from his teeth and pressed his face against Eskel’s throat, inhaling a deep lungful of scent. “Well, maybe not exactly alike.” Eskel admitted. Geralt hummed. “He’s definitely feral. But you’re just ridiculous. Strangest thing I’ve ever met.” Geralt’s answering growl was more felt then heard, a half hearted sound as he drifted off to sleep.

Eskel’s own body was growing heavy with sleep again, but he still grinned to himself at his own observation. Yes, the word fit Geralt perfectly. His ridiculous, bite-y brother and his crazy feral shadow.


	11. Too Close for Comfort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Geralt and Eskel survive the Trial of the Dreams. But their masters decide that they might not survive how close the two have become.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I wanted a bit of angst and ended up dumping a whole can of romance and FEELINGS on this story. Geralt and Eskel are now officially a romantic pairing and they will be going through THE DRAMA. I am so sorry.

Eskel was walking towards the great hall for lunch when Geralt slipped out of the library to join him. There was a pleased sort of half grin around Geralt’s mouth, which was unusual, but Eskel let it go unremarked. He had been scrubbing in the baths for what felt like forever trying to get the stink of ghoul blood off his skin after helping Jarosław with potions preparation. And he was more than happy to have a sympathetic ear to complain to.

Accept his rant was interrupted mid sentence when Witcher Serris burst out of the library behind them and ran by with a pack of five other Witchers hot on his heels. Geralt and Eskel had to both nimbly jump out of the way in order to avoid being run over.

That winter, the Witchers had started an interest in pickpocketing, which led to a friendly competition to see who could successfully sneak up on his brothers and steal something from their person without getting caught. Of course, if you did get caught, it usually meant that any Witcher in the vicinity would happily pile on top in a wrestling match to ‘punish’ the looser.

Serris, apparently, had something of a heavy hand because this was certainly not the first time that Eskel had seen him running for his life in recent weeks. Eskel was about to make a remark about that to Geralt when he turned and noticed that the pleased grin had spread into a full on gloat. In his left hand, Geralt was flipping a gold coin between his knuckles. At Eskel’s questioning look, he nodded.

“No, You didn’t. Geralt!” Eskel exclaimed. “Who?”

“Jorrys. Had his nose in a book. Serris was standing right behind him. Perfect chance.” Geralt grinned unrepentant. Even after almost two years since the Grasses, his voice was still rough as gravel, and he tended to keep his sentences short and to the point as a result. But from his tone it was clear that he was feeling mighty pleased with himself.

“You know they’re gonna figure it out eventually.” Eskel warned, though he also couldn’t help but be impressed with his brother. Geralt could be incredibly sneaky when he wanted to be.

“Eh.” Geralt shrugged, “We’ll see.”

They did in fact figure it out. And Eskel and the rest of the keep got to see Geralt get the shit beat out of him by six angry Witchers after dinner that evening.

Even half their size and still thin as a rail, Geralt gave them a good fight, but even he couldn’t fend off six fully grown and experienced Witchers for long. It eventually devolved into a rather odd game of Witchers tossing a snarling Geralt back and forth between them, until finally Rennes called a halt to it when their antics threatened to cause property damage.

Geralt limped back over to their table, already turning purple and blue, but he was still grinning with fierce pride, the gold coin held firmly in his hand. Eskel could only shake his head at this strange, ridiculous creature that made his heart swell and his throat close up tight in a way that was almost painful but so good that he never wanted it to end. He wanted to berate Geralt for thinking that he could ever get away with such a stunt, at the same time that he wanted to tug him into some dark corner and keep him all to himself. Keep him away until the only bruises on his pale skin were from Eskel’s hands and no one else’s.

Feelings like that were dangerous though, so he pushed the strange urge away and found a mug of watered down ale to press into Geralt’s hands instead.

Winter passed into spring and the keep emptied out once more. The night before the Trial of the Dreams, Eskel snuck into Geralt’s bed.

Besides them, Szymon, Jacek, and Gweld lay motionless upon their beds. No one would sleep.

That night they didn’t touch, and they didn’t speak. They lay on their sides facing each other. Golden eyes and amber eyes and just the gentle rhythm of their breaths between them. There were, Eskel thought, the faintest trace of freckles across Geralt’s nose if you looked carefully enough. Just the barest shadows across his pale skin. In the heavy silence between them, Eskel counted them and committed every single one of them to memory.

The Trial of the Dreams took place on the spring equinox, in a cave high above Kaer Morhen.

Geralt could feel the latent power of the location, like a gentle humming just on the edge of his hearing. It would be annoying, if it also wasn’t so intoxicating. The air was rich with power and the rocks ran warm because of it. Besides him, Eskel was practically vibrating with it, though Geralt himself noticed it only as a vague flush to his skin.

No one spoke as they entered the cave.

The five of them were being escorted by Master Varin and Rennes. Though the Dreams arguably involved more magic than the Grasses, no mages were ever allowed to accompany them on this Trial. The Trial of the Dreams was strictly for Witchers. A left over ritual from when they were still an order of warrior monks, from before the mutations which turned them into professional monster hunters were introduced to them by the mage Alzur.

Witchers held nothing sacred, but this ritual was perhaps the closet thing they did.

Geralt did not watch as Eskel laid down on the cave floor beside him.

One by one they were given a bitter tasting drink, before Varin lit a bundle of dried herbs and filled the cave with strong smelling smoke.

The last thing which Geralt recalled before he was dragged down into darkness was watching Rennes place a single hand on each of their foreheads, a simple gesture that somehow carried more weight than the mountain itself.

When Geralt finally awoke, it took a long while for the world to make sense again.

It wasn’t the aching physical pain of the Grasses, but it was a pain none the less. A feeling like his mind had been ripped open, and some rough hand had rearranged whatever they had found inside.

It was impossible to describe the Trial of the Dreams.

No words existed in any language that could describe the process of having everything you knew, everything you feared, everything you hated or desired, be taken from you until nothing at all was left. There were no words to describe what it felt like to be hollowed out. To be remade into a different image of yourself, one that was both intimate and foreign at the same time.

Unlike the Trial of the Grasses, which produced a physical change, the changes that the Trial of the Dreams induced were almost entirely invisible.

It was the Dreams which gave them their absolute control over their body. Their ability to regulate not only the contractions of their pupils, but their metabolisms as well, allowing them to slow it down during times of starvation or speed it up in order to boost their energy. With a small effort of concentration, a Witcher could slow their already slow pulse in the event that they were poisoned or severely injured. During meditation, this control gave them something close to a mage’s magical healing ability, allowing them to redirect energy as needed in order to speed their recovery not only from physical injury, but magical and mental ones as well. Under dire circumstances, meditation could even replace the need to sleep and eat as well.

Just like the Grasses gave Witchers immunity to poison and disease, the Dreams gave Witchers near immunity to the many mental and emotional traps and illusions that various monsters could create. Though nothing could make them entirely immune to magic, Witchers became notoriously difficult to curse or otherwise manipulate with magic after they survived the Dreams.

Most notably, the Dreams gave Witchers their ability with Signs. Those simple yet highly effective spells that gave them an edge in a fight even when they were outclassed in every other way. It was that final touch that put Witchers in a category all their own. Not quite mages, and not quite man or beast either, but something of all three.

For a long time the only thing that Geralt could do was lay there. Thoughts came in disjointed pieces, and fled whenever he tried to focus on one.

Just like after the Grasses, the world was suddenly so much more. Only this time it was nothing that he could sense with his body, and only things which he could just tell, intrinsically, were there when before there had been nothing.

As always, his first fully formed thought upon waking was of Eskel.

With a pained moaned, he rolled onto his side, and was pleasantly surprised to find that he was not alone in waking up. All around him, his brothers were carefully stumbling to their feet.

All except for one.

Even as Geralt couldn’t help but smile to see Eskel awake and aware, he felt it shatter when his eyes found the single form that had yet to stir.

Jacek lay gray faced and cold, his eyes staring unseeing at the cave ceiling.

As if through a thick fog, Geralt heard others enter the cave. A voice that he knew he should recognize, but that sounded muffled and indistinct, said something that he couldn’t understand. Hands grabbed him around the armpits and tugged him to his feet like a child. Cold water was forced down his throat, and he swallowed automatically.

But all that he could see was the still form of his brother. The dead were not spoken of in Kaer Morhen, but nor were they forgotten. Geralt knew the names of every brother he had lost, adding one more was just a gesture of habit at this point.

The next few weeks past in a strange blur.

Suddenly Geralt understood why they passed this Trial in the spring. If he had to go through this with a keep full of Witchers he might go insane. As it as, just the handful of trainers was bad enough.

After they were recovered enough to be brought back from the cave, a strange process of reintroduction began.

After the Grasses, Eskel had remarked that learning to read scents was like learning a new language. The reality however was that before the Dreams they had been working with a metaphorical arm tied behind their back. Even with the senses of a Witcher, their minds had still been human, and had only been capable of understanding the input of sounds and smells and sight as distinct parcels of data. Interesting but only partially useful. But now that something had fundamentally shifted in their brains, every individual piece of data came together to provide a wealth of information.

The problem was in how they reacted to that information.

Most of the time their instincts were smart enough to recognize the Witchers who had been training them all their lives. While all of them had been conditioned to obey their elders, now there was almost an element of compulsion to it, a recognition of pack hierarchy that went bone deep. Other times though, their instincts would get confused and would mistake a pack member for a threat, or as someone who could be challenged. Before their conscious mind could catch up, they would find themselves snapping and snarling defensively at Witchers they had known all their lives.

Luckily, most of these incidents were more embarrassing than anything else. Such an instinctive, reflexive response to danger was after all exactly what the Trial of the Dreams was supposed to create. A Witcher’s reflexes had to be faster than thought after all. Mostly it was just a matter of training a young Witcher to properly differentiate between friend and foe, a skill which mostly came through establishing familiarity.

Thus the process of reintroduction.

However, that was not to say that some problems didn’t arise.

The Dreams took all of the training and conditioning which they had been put through for years and simply heightened it. Fear and hesitation had long been drilled out him, but now it was as if Geralt’s body had the exact opposite reaction instead. During the first few weeks of adjustment, when everyone was at their most volatile, this was both hilarious and dangerous.

Hilarious because Gweld couldn’t stop himself from pouncing on a flickering speck of light being reflected onto the floor off of a polished piece of armor. It was hilarious when none of them could stop their full bodied reactions to every startling sound, or when they had to physically restrain themselves from chasing the younglings when they went tearing through the hallways.

It was dangerous when their practice fights suddenly turned deadly because their bodies had become convinced it was a kill or be killed situation, and could no longer tell the difference between a brother and a threat. It was deadly when an unexpected touch sent them into a full blown attack, heedless of the fact that the touch had been friendly or not.

It was deadly when Eskel, calm, collected Eskel, turned half feral with protective rage when Gweld got too close to Geralt.

Gweld and Geralt were in the middle of a sparring match when it happened. Gweld was a good fighter, but he tended to be over enthusiastic, and rushed in when he should have waited. Geralt was using this to his amusement, and was subtly drawing Gweld into increasingly clumsier attacks as he continued to dance lithely out of the way and Gweld got more and more frustrated.

With a low snarl, Gweld lunged forward, telegraphing the movement years in advance, and Geralt smiled as he eased back just a fraction of a step, letting his opponents blade come close enough so that he could feel the air it displaced brush against his face. He knew, of course, that from the outside an untrained eye might think that he was barely keeping up while Gweld was closing in on the attack, but Eskel knew exactly what game Geralt was playing, and often berated him about it. Or at least he was supposed to know what was going on.

Geralt had not calculated with the fact that while Eskel’s mind certainly knew what was going on, his newly enhanced instincts did not. They would only see someone threatening his brother. And they reacted with all of the rage of a protective bear.

A growl erupted from Eskel’s throat that was so sharp it was practically a roar, and he almost tore Gweld in half from the force with which he flung him away from Geralt. Suddenly Geralt found himself pulled tight against Eskel’s back with one arm, while the other held a sword protectively out in front of both them. He could feel the vibrations from Eskel’s growling back pressed against his chest, and for one wild moment before his mind caught up with what was happening, he wanted to lean into it and melt.

When he looked up the first thing he noticed was Gweld struggling to his feet, an answering, reflexive snarl twisting his face. Szymon was standing with his sword raised, torn between the urge to protect himself and confusion at Eskel’s behavior. Both of them were quivering with the effort of holding themselves back. Everything in their body telling them to react to the danger before them and fight, even as their brains told them to stay out of it.

The scent of burning pine and ozone filled the air, like a tree stuck by lightening.

Suddenly Vesemir stepped forward, a rumbling growl echoing from his chest.

Szymon and Gweld reacted immediately. At Vesemir’s sharp growl they both went down to their knees at the shear power and authority in that a sound. But Eskel simply tensed in preparation to attack.

Geralt’s previous confusion was cut through with sudden fear like a knife. He knew what happened to Witchers who went rapid. Everyone knew what happened. Desperately, Geralt grabbed his shoulders, trying to pull him back. It was enough to allow Vesemir to disarm Eskel with a flick of his sword.

But still Eskel quivered with rage under Geralt’s grip, and snarled as he lunged at a Vesemir with his hands stretched out like claws.

“Eskel. Eskel, please” Geralt begged, and barely recognized his own voice over the sound of Eskel’s growl. “Eskel, you need to calm down. I’m fine. Please. I’m ok. Eskel.”

Relying on every bit of extra strength his trials had given him, Geralt threw his arms around Eskel, curling his back over Eskel’s. Vesemir’s expression was dark in front of him. Behind him Geralt could see Rennes and Varin, drawn by the noise, descending the stairs to the courtyard.

“No! Please.” He gasped out before he could think. Eskel’s body was so warm where it pressed against his. He couldn’t… “Please.”

“Geralt. Let him go.” Vesemir’s eyes were impossibly heavy, and the hand he held out was gentle. But Geralt felt it like a slap.

“No!”

But suddenly Vesemir was there, deftly reaching between them to tear them apart, twisting Eskel into a chokehold and forcing him down to his knees. Geralt felt an awful panic building in his chest. Worse than anything he had felt when they took him away for the extra trials.

He thought he might lunge at Vesemir himself. He thought he might shake apart.

Vesemir growled, low and fierce, and shook Eskel once. Suddenly, a gasp broke out from the dark haired Witcher’s mouth, and Eskel went limp in shock. Sanity and confusion replaced the blank rage on his face.

Geralt thought he might collapse in place, but he firmed his knees with a deep breath. The scent of violence was still thick in the air, and it was almost impossible to think past it. But Geralt focused on Eskel.

“Please.” It was the only word he could force out past the ache in his throat. He had no shame for the naked pleading in his voice, he was way past that.

But Vesemir only held up a hand and met his gaze evenly. “Easy, Wolf. Easy. He’ll be ok.” He turned his attention to the shaking form in his arms, and slowly released Eskel from his hold. “There you are, pup. You’re back with us now. Easy does it.”

Rennes and Varin were almost upon them, but Geralt paid them no mind as he rushed forward to catch Eskel’s shoulders before he could collapse face first into the ground. They both crouched shivering on the ground while Vesemir rose to address his superiors.

Their expressions were dark and thunderous, and Geralt knew that nothing good ever came of those looks.

The next day, when Eskel was called into Rennes’ office around noon, Geralt had all of his worst fears confirmed. He spent all night pacing back and forth, Szymon and Gweld sitting awake and silent and watching. All around him he felt his world crumbling when Eskel continued to fail to return.

In the morning, he learned that Eskel had been sent to the School of the Griffin.

When Geralt found out the first thing he did was storm into Rennes office and demand an explanation.

As punishment he got twenty lashes across his back with the bull whip and had to spend the rest of the evening balancing on the top of ten foot pole.

It wasn’t until he was allowed to come down hours later and after he grudgingly allowed Szymon to rub a healing salve into the still throbbing gashes across his back that the feeling of blind rage settled into something vaguely more manageable. Marginally calmer, he still knew that sleep would be impossible that night. Sometime in the still hours before dawn, Vesemir found him on the ramparts, overlooking the great spread of Morhen Valley opening up below the keep.

After much discussion, Vesemir explained, it had been decided that the two of them should spend some time apart. Eskel’s response had been too close to possessive for comfort, and such a relationship would only get in the way.

Geralt scoffed. How could Eskel possibly be in the way.

Vesemir sighed and carefully explained.

The Trial of the Dreams fundamentally altered Witchers on a subconscious level.

A human’s instincts would always get in the way of hunting monsters. Emotional as they were, they would always run when they should fight, or fight when they should hide. Even were they given the strength and speed of a Witcher, there was more to hunting than just physical prowess. A Witcher’s instincts had to be free from the random impulses of human emotions. Able to assess and respond to danger accurately and without bias or false pride, in a way that no human would be able to keep up with. With an ability that bordered on the uncanny, a Witcher had to be able to read any terrain or environment so well that they could react to a threat faster than their conscious mind could ever hope to achieve.

But learning to separate instinct from emotional impulse was difficult. Their ability to read the world around them was so much faster now, but that didn’t necessarily mean that they automatically knew what to do with all that knowledge. Or how to respond productively.

Witchers, despite all the stories to the contrary, were still highly emotional beings, and learning to differentiate between their emotional and their instinctual impulses required strict conditioning and training as much as it relied on their mutations to lay the groundwork.

An ache opened up in Geralt’s chest. Like the time he slipped with the pendulums and the swinging weight took him fully in the chest. His ribs had taken weeks to fully heal. Vesemir’s voice was steady and undeniable, and each word dug the pain deeper.

Traditionally Witcher schools sometimes exchanged students in order to trade techniques and knowledge, and it had been a while since the Wolf School had deigned to send any of theirs away. The School of the Griffin at Kaer Seren specialized in Signs and magic, and Vesemir promised that Eskel would excel there.

An awful smile twisted his face at Vesemir’s words. It was true, when it came to Signs, Eskel was almost unstoppable.

The first time he formed his fingers into the Sign of Quen, the rocks which Master Varin had been throwing at them bounced off of Eskel’s glowing shield so hard they flew back and hit Varin in the face.

When they practiced Yrden, Eskel was able to stop Geralt dead in his tracks after only a few tries.

When it came to Aard, Eskel spent the day effortlessly blasting training dummies across the yard while everyone else struggled to move piles of hay.

Their introduction to Igni saw Eskel release a torrent of fire so powerful that he almost set the side of the barn on fire. They were carefully relocated to a different part of the courtyard after that.

Lastly, they were introduced to Axii, and Eskel had them all walking around in dazed circles while the rest of them were still struggling to calm a startled horse.

Geralt frowned as the memories played out in his mind. Later that night Eskel had further experimented with Axii, and the things they got up to then had been truly stunning.

“I thought you said you didn’t care what we did.”

“It’s not about that. We don’t care, as long as it’s only about sex. What you have with Eskel…that’s more. So much more. And that’s dangerous.”

“How-“

“It’s dangerous because it’s a distraction you can’t afford. You will go out on the Path and you will be separated. That is the way of things. You will not be able to help each other on the Path, and worrying about each other will only leave you distracted and get you killed.”

“You don’t know that.“

“Geralt. There’s a reason why we have a pack. Why we bond the way we do with our brothers. There is safety in numbers. You might loose a few but the pack survives, and that is what is important. Growing overly attached to a single person, it’s…. You’ll not survive, if you put too much of yourself into someone else.” Vesemir’s voice broke and he looked away.

The cold wind off the mountain whipped around and blew away his scent before Geralt could get a could grasp of it. The full moon behind them cast them deep into the shadows of the merlons.

Geralt opened his mouth in shock, and then closed it as he carefully considered. “You…Who was it?”

“No one. They’re long dead.” There was a long pause while Vesemir visibly collected himself. “It’s for the best. You’ll see him in a year.And you’ll both be stronger for it. You’ll see.”

Geralt didn’t argue, and after a long pause Vesemir huffed and returned to the warmth of the keep. But Geralt knew that Vesemir was wrong. Eskel was a part of everything that he was. Every single inch of him was as much Eskel’s as it was his own. And that would never change. No matter how much distance they tried to put between them.


	12. Griffin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eskel struggles with self doubt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the continued pain. also warnings for relationship-phobic thinking? is that a thing?

He didn’t understand why they were sending him away.

He walked into Rennes’ office in a daze.

It was one thing to know theoretically the kind of killing haze that could come over a Witcher in battle, but it was another thing entirely to experience it first hand.

In that moment he had absolutely been prepared to kill Gweld for attacking Geralt. The life of one brother for another. Eskel wondered what that made him.

As he was being led away, Eskel had turned to see Geralt standing in the courtyard, desperately arguing against Vesemir and Barmin to be allowed to follow Eskel as he was being escorted into the keep. Gweld and Szymon stood confused and lost looking behind Geralt’s ill contained fury.

His last look of Geralt, he realized with a shudder. At least for a very long time.

Inside the office, which was a barely contained chaos of books and papers and a desk somehow barely holding up under the strain, Eskel stood before the heavy eyes of the council. Rennes, who was implacable as stone with his one good eye. Varin with his thin face and thinner voice. Tjold with his steady stance and immovable scowl. And Jarosław with burn scars down half his face and the constant smell of bitter herbs about him.

He didn’t understand it, but he knew that he was going away for a year.

With steady words Rennes had explained to him his mistake. The mistake of getting too close. Too involved. Relationships like that were not suited to the lifestyle of a Witcher, which was lonely and nomadic outside of the winter when they all came together to be a pack for a few cold months. Anything beyond the bonds of pack threatened to distract a Witcher from his duty. Physical pleasure was fine, but the bond between himself and Geralt threatened the equilibrium of a Witcher’s life, and thus they had to be separated while they got over it. And since Geralt was _special_ , it fell to Eskel to be sent away.

He should consider it a great honor, that he would be given this chance to study Signs with a School famed for their skill with them. The School of the Griffin would be a great opportunity for Eskel.

Eskel tried not to let on how nauseas those words made him feel.

Eskel travelled to Kaer Seren, located high in the Kovir mountains, by portal. It wasn’t forbidden per se for a student to travel outside of their keep after undergoing mutations, but it was understood that if prejudice against full grown Witchers was bad, no one wanted to see what would happen when racist peasants were faced with a cat-eyed child. Dogbert had opened the portal directly from Rennes office, and Eskel had been too stunned to do anything but step through under the council’s heavy glare.

He was still wearing the same clothes, still sweaty after practice because he hadn’t been given the chance to bath yet.

The ghost of Geralt’s voice, begging him to calm down and panicked as he had never heard it, still echoed in his ears.

Inside he just felt hollow. The rage he had felt when he thought that Geralt was being threatened had been all consuming, and now that it was gone he just felt confused and shaky.

He stepped through the portal with Rennes at his shoulder and tried to focus past the feeling of his entire world collapsing under the absence of the one thing, the one person, who had always held it all together.

The School of the Griffin was very strange.

Eskel had never really paid it much mind before, the fact that the other Witcher schools might be different than the Wolf. He knew that the schools kept up steady correspondences with each other, and once or twice a Witcher from a different school had even wintered at Kaer Morhen, when for whatever reason they were unable to return to their own keep.

But he had always assumed that besides a few artificial differences, everything would be inherently the same. He had been very, very wrong.

The portal had opened up into a wide courtyard paved with large flagstones. Behind them was a massive curtain wall made from a strange pale looking stone. In front of them was the keep. Five slender towers rising above the main structure, and a massive pair of doors made out of a wood so dark it was almost black. Even as the portal closed behind them, the doors opened and out stepped three Witchers. Rennes exchanged a curt greeting with the head of the Griffins, a tall slender man with dark skin and close cropped hair. Eskel didn’t listen to the words, he had heard enough already, but he still noticed how elegant the Griffin’s speech was, almost flowery in comparison with Rennes’ gruff and curt tones. And he wasn’t so far gone to not feel shock when the three Witchers _bowed_ in greeting.

Griffins had a reputation for being traditionalist and well-mannered, with knightly values and even _ceremonies_ to boot.

At Kaer Morhen, he never really put much thought into what he wore, as long as it was warm and sturdy and fit him reasonably well. Everything they wore was a hodgepodge of things they produced themselves and what the active Witchers brought home over the winter, and thus their clothes were all a wild array of styles and material. But he had never really noticed the overall worn quality to their clothes, or paid attention to the number of patched over holes and re-sewn seams.

The School of the Griffin put that into stark contrast.

It was common knowledge that they were one of the last Witcher Schools to still be funded by the local king, but Eskel had never really bothered to consider what that meant.

Though their clothing was not rich by any human standards, to Eskel’s untrained eye it might as well have been the high fashion of some noble court for all he knew. The three Witchers in front of him wore knee length tunics made of tightly spun wool and edged in fur and dyed some deep shade of red with yellow embroidery. Jerome, the head of the Griffins, wore shining metal pauldrons and vambraces as well, though the other two wore no armor.

As he was led through the keep, Eskel couldn’t help but take in the rich tapestries hung on the walls. The dust free corridors, and finely crafted furniture in every room he passed through. Kaer Morhen was the oldest of the Witcher schools, but this was the first time that Eskel considered that its shabby state, everything showing signs of being repaired at least once, was due to more than just age.

Over the next few weeks this knowledge was only further ingrained. Every trainee had a set of clothes obviously made after a specific pattern. The youngest all dressed in dark browns while those who had survived the Grasses, the Dreams, and the Trial of the Mountain all had increasingly lighter tones to mark their relative status. Full grown Witchers and trainers wore a dark red with different patterns embroidered along the edges to further denote their various positions.

Besides the material differences, Griffins were also much more formal than the Wolves ever were.

Compared to Geralt, or especially Lambert, Eskel had always been well behaved. He rarely chafed at orders and generally only ever got into trouble through his association with Geralt. He had never considered himself the rebellious type, until he came to the Griffins that was. Everything here was so rigid. From the table manners that he hadn’t even known he was missing to the general lack of rowdiness, (wolves never walked anywhere when they could be running and they were always loud about everything) Eskel found himself feeling foreign and wrong footed around those who he should rightly consider his cousins.

The strangeness was of course compounded by the undeniable feeling of loss that accompanied Eskel everywhere. Even as he found himself engaged in rigorous lessons, learning to apply Sings in ways which he never would have considered before as well as a host of other studies which he might have only had in passing at Kaer Morhen, (Griffins were much more studious and dedicated time to learning things outside of monster hunting such as advanced maths and history as well as _etiquette_ \- they even had classrooms with desks for Melitele’s sake), Eskel could not ignore the gaping hole left behind in Geralt’s absence.

Almost half a year since he had last seen him, and the confusion and pain he felt over his absence hadn’t grown any easier.

Eskel had of course long since come to terms with the fact that, granted he survived his training, he would set out on the Path and spend the majority of every year separated from his brothers. Outside of happenstance or the rare hunt that was large enough to draw multiple Witchers, he would not have any contact with them until winter.

There had been a time, when Witchers were newly made and the world had not yet grown to hate or fear them, that they could have travelled easily in twos and threes. But now with the growing scarcity of work, poor paying contracts, and rising prejudice, a town could barely stomach one Witcher much less two, and it was simply safer to travel alone.

But it was still a shock, to be so abruptly separated from someone who had more or less not left his side since he was six.

For days Eskel found himself turning to share a joke or a clever observation, only to find that his intended recipient was not there. Or he’d lean over expecting to find a shoulder to press into, and find only empty air.

A thousands little shocks just like that, the continued reminders that Geralt was not there, felt like being hit over the head with a ton of bricks. Every single time.

It left Eskel feeling unbalanced and adrift.

Eskel had arrived at the end of spring, and it was now edging into fall, and he had fit himself as well as he could into the rhythm of life at Kaer Seren.

They had a rare few hours off in between lessons, and it was still barely warm enough to make visiting the massive waterfalls behind Kaer Seren still pleasant.

Eskel was sitting on a rock well out of the reach of the ice cold spray, but some other boys were either brave or stupid enough to go splashing in the large pool formed at the bottom of the falls.

Perched above him was Jonathan, a patient old Witcher in charge of teaching botany and currently tasked with supervising. Eskel shifted uncomfortably and felt his skin itch at the thought.

One of the hardest adjustments was just being watched all the time. At Kaer Morhen, outside of actual lessons, they had always been left more or less alone and it took a truly loud disturbance to catch the attention of the trainers. But here at Kaer Seren everything was so regulated. The older boys were expected to watch the younger boys and always there was at least one older Witcher keeping an eye on things. It was oddly claustrophobic to someone used to having total freedom in their spare time.

Of course none of the Griffins seemed to notice it, and kept up their lively chatter despite the supervision.

“Hey there, Eskel.” Coën waved jovially at Eskel as he came striding over towards him, clambering up over the boulders to join Eskel on his perch.

Coën was tall and lanky with light brown skin and a friendly disposition. His face was marred by smallpox scars, a rarity amongst Witchers, but he was intelligent and mild mannered and Eskel did not mind his company, but he frowned when he noticed the other trainees who followed.

Torrick was short and stocky with thin red hair. He sat down with a heavy sigh and Eskel tried not to wrinkle his nose at his sweaty smell. Griffins, he had noticed, were not nearly as keen nosed as Wolves. James was dark haired with disarmingly delicate features. Eskel knew that they were only trying to be friendly, but he couldn’t help but resent their presence just a little bit, because they were inevitably the wrong presence.

The three Griffins picked up a lively conversation about training, and Eskel did his best to make the appropriate listening noises where he should.

Unfortunately he couldn’t keep the attention entirely off of himself. “Hey Wolf, you have got to teach me that trick you did to disarm Coën in training this morning, it was amazing.” Torrick called in the strange clipped dialect of the Griffins. A jolt of pain twisted in his chest. Technically speaking, all of his brothers at Kaer Morhen, including himself, were Wolves, but Geralt was the only one who bore that name.

“Don’t bother,” said James, “It’s probably some Wolfish secret that they can’t tell to outsiders. Only those worthy can know the ways of the Wolf.” He put on an affected tone for the last bit, holding a hand to his chest dramatically.

Torrick burst out laughing, but Coën gave him an apologetic glance. “I’m sure it wasn’t anything fancy,” he deflected, “I was being clumsy and got distracted, that’s all.”

“Haha, if you say so, then it must be true. Besides, you ever hear of a Wolf as good at Signs as Eskel is? You know, if we could just teach you some manners you’d practically be one of us.” Torrick chuckled.

Eskel felt his patience slipping. He hadn’t understood, at the time, when Geralt had described what it was like to feel his words get stuck in his throat and refuse to come out, but Eskel thought he understood him now. Ever since arriving at Kaer Seren there was an odd pressure there, a build up of frustration that had no outlet stoppering him up like a cork stopped a bottle. But suddenly that pressure burst and he felt a well of words pouring out of his mouth almost without his consent. “You know, I’ve been here half a year and I still don’t see the point in all that. You waste so much time learning about kings and nobles and how to behave, and you know it’s not gonna make any difference out on the Path. You’re still gonna go out and be spit on and thrown out. Just because you know how to eat with a fork won’t stop people from calling you a freak. Besides, who you gonna be nice to on the Path? All your courtly manners won’t stop you from being alone, same as the rest of us.”

Coën, Torrick, and James sat in stunned silence. Eskel realized that since coming here, he had been so quiet that none of them had ever heard him produce so many words at once.

Coën was the first to recover. “Well, I’m sure there’s merit to both arguments. I mean, Wolves have a reputation for being professionals…”

“You mean a reputation for being stuck up.” Interrupted James, crossing his arms in indignation. “Not to mention, it’s our manners that provide you those clothes you're wearing now, and not the rags you showed up in. You Wolves all think you’re so high and mighty because you’re the oldest, but everyone knows that Kaer Morhen isn’t much more than a ruin these days. We make an effort to fit in, unlike others.”

Eskel was suddenly seized with the desire to shove that smirking face into the ground. He gritted his teeth and resisted as best he could. “At least I’m not a sell out. Jumping around at a kings command.”

Despite the overall restraint of most Griffins, it might have actually devolved into a fistfight at that point had Coën not interfered.

“Torrick, James, please just leave it alone. Eskel is our guest here, and you’ve insulted him enough for one day. How about you give us some space and we can all cool down?”

There was much grumbling and general snarling, but eventually the other two departed with sullen glances. Eskel didn’t notice that he had been clenching his fists and growling low in his throat the whole time until they were all the way down the rock pile where they had been sitting. He made a conscious effort to relax before turning to Coën with a puzzled look. Despite his friendly manner, he had expected the other youth to take the side of his fellow Griffins.

At his questioning look Coën only shrugged. “I am sorry for those two. They can be a bit…well thoughtless is probably too nice. Arrogant and irksome is more like it.”

Eskel nodded in agreement.

“You..uhh…if you don’t mind me asking that is, you don’t seem very happy to be here. Was it not your choice? To come study at Kaer Seren?”

Eskel frowned. He had of course told no one about the real reason he was here, and the official story that Master Jerome had told upon Eskel’s introduction was that he was here only as a transfer student because of his ability with Signs. There had been no word about how this was a punishment as well.

Eskel opened and closed his mouth a few times. At home he was supposed to be the eloquent one, but even he had no words to describe his situation. And even if he could, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to. Geralt was…private. Personal in a way that he had never considered before but now didn’t want to let go of.

But Coën had been nothing but kind to him since his arrival, and had borne the brunt of Eskel’s foul mood with grace the whole time. He deserved at least an attempt at an explanation.

“I…I had a bad reaction, after the Dreams.” Eskel started, and Coën nodded in understanding. The Dreams were notorious in every School.

Eskel shifted and collected his thoughts. “I was too attached to someone….and got protective. I guess, too protective. Or possessive I guess. And the Masters didn’t like that. Because…”

“Because everyone is alone on the Path, and Witchers can’t afford to grow too attached lest that persons death distract us from our duty.” Coën supplied, and Eskel looked up in shock.

Coën gave him a weary look. “We got a whole lecture about it. You mean you wolves don’t?”

Eskel frowned. “Um, not explicitly, no. I think it’s more kind of implied.”

Coën breathed out a caustic sounding huff, and pulled his knees up to his chin. His eyes looked very far away all of a sudden and his scent took on a bitter note of sadness. Eskel considered him in silence.

“Did you…were you ever…attached?” He asked, as delicately as he knew how.

Coën frowned down at his knees, but he didn’t leave in a huff. And after a little while he even answered. “No, well…I had a brother, Frank. He was always small, so I guess I always looked out for him. And…he didn’t survive the Dreams.” Coën cut himself off, twisting his lips into a grimace.

“Oh.” The dead were not spoken of at Kaer Morhen, and Eskel could not think of what to say. He tried to imagine what it would have been like, waking up after the Dreams and finding Geralt’s lifeless body on the ground besides him, but his mind shuddered away from that thought before it could even fully form. It was simply too awful to consider.

With a forced, bitter sounding laugh Coën pushed himself to his feet and brushed off his pants. “But that’s all in the past. And all for the best anyway. If the Path really is as awful as the Witchers say it is, then it’s probably better to do it alone. No need to draw someone else into that misery as well. And as long as we make it back in the winter, what else do we need?” Without any farewell, Coën turned and lightly leapt down the rocks to join his brothers at the waters edge. They’d all have to return to the keep in a few minutes anyways, but Eskel stayed where he was.

The confusion in his head was almost worse than any physical pain he had ever felt, save for the Trials.

Even during his very first months at Kaer Morhen, when he had been terrified by every dark shadow and everything seemed strange and foreign, Geralt had been a steady presence at his side. Through the years, Eskel had more or less come to terms with his fate, but he had never had to question or even consider what Geralt meant to him. From the very second that that strange, ridiculous creature had skipped up to him at Kaer Morhen’s gate, he had simply been there. Even when the Trials had dulled his happy chatter and dimmed his fiery personality, he had always been a constant source of warmth at Eskel’s side. Slightly altered through pain but fundamentally the same. Fundamentally good and everything that Eskel wanted, in those rare times that he let himself want anything.

Worse than the separation was the worry that what was between him and Geralt was wrong. That it was dangerous. And that he might end up causing Geralt even more pain, sometime in the future, should they continue as they had.


	13. Reunions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eskel returns home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heavy smut at end of chapter - Geralt is 15- Eskel is 16

Geralt growled low in his throat as he stalked through the halls. This day so far had been bullshit.

He woke up already frustrated after a night spent startling awake after one nightmare after another.

(After the second time that he couldn’t hold back a startled cry, Geralt gave in and let Gweld climb into bed next to him, holding him as he tried and failed to go back to sleep, but as soothing as those arms were they were still unmistakably the wrong arms and so ended up causing Geralt just as much pain as they did comfort.)

His bad mood was reflected in the torrential spring rain that was trying its best to wash Kaer Morhen from the mountainside. The sound of it was deafening, and the temperature was frigid even for a Witcher. But that was no excuse and they had all stumbled in from their morning run soaking wet and shivering.

Breakfast at least was hearty bowls of warm porridge with honey, but that was the only highpoint to the day.

During training that morning, Geralt had grown increasingly frustrated as he continued to struggle with the Sign of Quen. Though he had finally mastered the other Signs, he still struggled to maintain his shield for any period of time. Master Varin had not hesitated to make his disappointment known, aiming increasingly cutting remarks at Geralt as the morning wore on.

Geralt, after all, was supposed to be _special_. It was shameful, really, to see him struggle with something so _simple_.

Geralt had held out as long as he could, but he had eventually snapped. The look on Varin’s face when he blasted him across the training hall with Aard had been satisfying. The beating that had followed not so much.

At lunch he sat with Gweld and Szymon, the two boys from the year above them, the one boy above that, and the three boys who were bound to to face the Trial of the Mountains that year. As he had for the past year, he very carefully did not acknowledge the empty space next to him, though for the first several days he had growled at anyone who dared to sit there.

Gweld, on his right, was excitingly retelling the story of his recent run-in with a drowner while he was hunting for dear at the lower lakes but Geralt didn’t bother listening. His back still stung from the lashes he had received, and he was in no mood to be social.

Though truth be told, he had been in that mood a lot recently. Ever since…

For at least a year now, he had gone from quiet to practically mute, and rarely made any effort to engage with his brothers. For the most part he was met with puzzled acceptance. Everyone knew that he could be moody at times, but this was rather extreme even for him. He knew that especially Gweld worried about him, and he did try to reassure him when he could, but it was hard when that worry was also impossibly grating. There was nothing wrong with him.

Lambert, unsurprisingly, was one of the few who refused to recognize Geralt’s clear ‘leave me alone’ signals. He continued to find ways to pester Geralt at all odd hours, going so far as to follow him around singing the most annoying song he could come up with if Geralt tried to ignore him.

But Lambert was also one of the few who didn’t grate against Geralt’s nerves the way that everyone else seemed to these days. Lambert was only eight, but there was an echoing sadness in his eyes sometimes. A shadow of the…emptiness…that Geralt felt.

He stabbed at his food sullenly with his knife and scowled.

Szymon leaned around Gweld and waved his hand to get Geralt’s attention.

“What?” Geralt snapped.

“Hey Geralt, you zone out like that during practice and I’ll finally get to whip your ass.” Gweld laughed at Szymon’s joke. “I’ve called your name like two times already. I was wondering if you wanted help with Quen. We could practice later today if you want.”

Geralt frowned. “I don’t need help.”

“Sure you do.” Gweld huffed. “Your Quen is so shitty that you’re still wincing from that beating earlier. Varin will go easier on you if you show some improvement.” Szymon nodded earnestly in agreement.

Geralt pulled his lip back and flashed his too sharp teeth at the two. The other boys at their table were very tactfully looking away. “I told you I don’t need help. Especially not from someone I could still beat in my sleep.” Ignoring the angry retorts, Geralt pushed back from the table and stormed out of the hall. He was done eating anyways.

He regretted his words almost as soon as he was out in the corridor. Szymon’s offer had made him unreasonably angry, but that was no reason to lash out like that. Szymon was actually a very skilled swordsman, and it wasn’t his fault that Geralt would always be faster and stronger than him.

Feeling annoyed at himself and general frustration at the world bubbling under his skin, he couldn’t hold back the low growl as he stalked towards the stables.

Vesemir would be mad at him for being late to fencing lessons, but he needed to calm down or he’d do something he’d really regret.

Most of the stalls stood empty after the active Witchers departed for the Path, but Kaer Morhen still housed several horses year round, including retired mounts, mares with foals, and a few workhorses to help with various tasks. With the bad weather, the horses were all stuck inside. They stomped and tossed their heads at Geralt’s entrance, and one badly scarred stallion even threw his body against the gate of his stall hard enough to rattle the whole frame. Luckily these stalls were built with the strength of Witcher horses in mind, and held up to the abuse.

Unlike the work horses, which were common draft breeds, the other horses were all carefully bred at Kaer Morhen to be compatible with the Witcher lifestyle. With increased strength and endurance also came a vicious temperament and a clear intelligence. Witcher horses could be trained to do any number of tasks which normal horses could not, up to and including responding to complex verbal commands.

Geralt murmured soothing nonsense as he made his way to a particular mare near the back of the barn.

The mare he had in mind was particularly foul tempered. Even by Witcher standards she was considered vicious, but after an unfortunate accident a few years ago had left her blinded in one eye, she had become a permanent resident of the Kaer Morhen stables.

Geralt reached into his pocket and retrieved the piece of meat he had saved from his meal, wrapped in a scrap of cloth. When he approached, the mare whinnied and stuck her head out in greeting.

“Hello Roach.” Geralt called softly and held out the meat in offering. Roach happily took it from his flat palm, and didn’t even try to nibble him with her sharp teeth. After years of him bringing her similar treats, the two of them had something of an agreement.

When she was done chewing she nosed at him seeking out any more hidden snacks, but allowed him to stroke a hand down her long face.

“Sorry, girl. That’s all there is. I bet you’re probably dying of boredom in here, but I bet you’d like the rain even less. It’s nothing but mud out there anyways.” Roach tossed her head in agreement and stamped her hoof.

“I know.” He murmured, when Roach’s nostrils flared as she caught the scent of blood on the air from Geralt’s back. “I should keep my temper in check, then I wouldn’t get into trouble. It’s what Eskel always says. But well…It’s not my fault that Varin is such a bitch. They all expect me to be..some kind of genius at everything. And whenever I don’t get something right right away they all look at me like I’m letting them down somehow. Like I’m messing up on purpose. It’s not my fault that I’m shit at Quen.”

Roach snorted and knocked her head into Geralt’s shoulder, demanding that he continue his administrations when he trailed off mid-scratch.

“Sorry girl. I know you don’t care about any of this.” Geralt smiled and obligingly renewed his attentions, making sure to scratch her behind the ear just the way she liked.

“You know it’s been almost exactly a year since…well since _that_ day.” Geralt frowned down at his shoes. “I wonder…no, it’s best not to wonder, eh Roach?” The horse just flicked her head.

Under the constant pounding of the rain, Geralt caught the faint sound of footsteps approaching, and he sighed when the person got close enough and he smelled that it was Vesemir. He supposed it was time to return to his lessons.

The door to the stable opened and Vesemir wordlessly came to stand next to him. For a while the two of them stood in silence and observed the horse.

“Figured I’d find you here.” Vesemir rumbled in his low voice. “Not like you to skip out on lessons Wolf.”

“Am I in trouble?”

“Well, that depends.” Vesemir rumbled. “Are you gonna give me trouble?”

Geralt contemplated his words and shrugged. “Got enough cuts for one day, I guess.” Witchers healed fast, but not instantaneously and he had no desire to layer the marks still littering his back.

“Well, about time you showed some common sense.” Vesemir sounded genuinely surprised. “But I ain’t waiting on you all day, Wolf. Come along now.”

With one last farewell scratch to Roach’s muzzle Geralt turned and followed his mentor out of the stables. They took the door that led them straight into the keep rather than risk going outside and getting drenched in the still torrential down pour. (Idly Geralt thought that there were sure to be flash floods and landslides in the mountains tonight.)

It was a short walk to the indoor training hall they were using but it took them through the great hall. As they approached Geralt could hear a slight commotion stirring there, though when he looked to Vesemir the old Witcher only shrugged. Obviously he knew just as much as Geralt. They were just about to enter the hall when Vesemir frowned and touched his medallion. Geralt heard a strange whooshing sound like a sudden burst of wind and smelled the tang of magic.

Vesemir forcefully pushed the door open and Geralt entered hot on his heels. Magic in the great hall was very unusual.

At the far end by the great doors Geralt could see the fading light of some spell dissipating in the air, and in front of it stood several Witchers. Rennes and Varin stood next to Dogbert, as well as a dark skinned Witcher Geralt did not recognize. But he hardly bothered to notice them, because standing in the center of the small clump was an achingly familiar, dark haired figure.

Eskel.

Geralt felt is whole body lurch instinctively towards Eskel, and he had already taken several steps across the hall by the time his brain caught up with his body. Across the space, Eskel’s amber eyes were locked on his.

Geralt felt his breath escape him in a painful gasp. His muscles trembled with the force necessary to stop himself from running over there and grabbing Eskel into his arms.

Vesemir placed a firm hand on his shoulder as he passed him by, but even without that unspoken warning, Geralt knew to stay firmly in his place. The whole point of sending Eskel away was to sever the attachment between the two of them. If he goes proving that wrong right now by running into Eskel’s arms the way he wants to, they may end up finding a way to separate them permanently.

His attention, however, does not waver from Eskel one bit. The same barely leashed desire is echoed in Eskel’s gaze and he can see him quivering oh so lightly even from across the hall, and can smell faintly his familiar scent of pine and sage brightened with excitement and nerves.

The appropriate welcoming sounds are made. Rennes speaks some words with the unfamiliar Witcher. Geralt hardly listens to their words. Dogbert re-opens the portal and the stranger steps through.

Drawn by the display of magic, other Witchers and some trainees trail into the hall. Vesemir steps forward and greets Eskel warmly; a hand wrapped around his should drawing Eskel in and allowing the youth to breath in his scent close to his neck. Others offer a similar welcome.

All the while Geralt stays frozen in place. No matter what, he will not sabotage this reunion.

He waits until Gweld and Szymon, alerted perhaps by the fact that their trainer was still absent from their lesson, come running into the hall with howls of glee. Unabashed, they throw themselves at Eskel, and Geralt finally feels like it is safe enough to approach. Asides from Vesemir, all of the older Witchers have left.

For the full year that they were separated, he never once let himself think what it would be like to finally see Eskel again, because thinking about him in general was just too painful and daydreaming about something as uncertain as when they would see each other again was just dangerous.

As it is, Geralt is very, very overwhelmed.

Eskel reaches out for Geralt and Geralt steps eagerly into the embrace of his arms, closing his eyes when he finally gets close enough to scent Eskel properly.

It feels like every ounce of tension that he has been carrying with him for months vanishes in an instant. For just one second, the two of them fall against each other so completely that they would have fallen face first without the presence of the other. By some miracle they keep their greeting brief and restrained. The hall is still full of watchful eyes, and with a shaky breath Eskel pushes Geralt back to arms distance.

But even that is better than the total absence of the past year.

A smile cracks his broad face. Geralt can’t help but return it. He is home.

“Hey.” Eskel says, grinning.

“Hey.” Geralt says back, because he can’t think of anything else when he has Eskel standing so close after so long being apart.

It’s not until that point that he notices the strange clothes that Eskel is wearing. A light brown tunic over matching pants and belted at the waist with a cloth sash. The clothes feel soft and warm and have small embroidered waves along the hem. They also reek of something which Geralt can only assume is _Griffin_.

It’s not a bad smell, objectively speaking, but it muddies Eskel’s natural scent and makes him smell foreign and not like a Wolf and Geralt hates it. He has to restrain himself from ripping the clothes off of Eskel in front of everyone.

Eskel obvious catches on to Geralt’s dilemma because he gives him a very pointed look, but Geralt is saved from having to say anything by a sudden shriek when Lambert comes barreling through the doors and leaps full force at Eskel, almost knocking him over with his enthusiasm.

Gweld and Szymon immediately start ribbing him for being caught unaware, and Geralt is able to step back for a moment and compose himself.

He needs to convince the masters that his bond to Eskel is no stronger than his bond with any of his other brothers. Simply the bond of pack and no more. Irrationally tearing Eskel’s clothes off and rubbing himself all over him until he smells right again will definitely not convince them of that.

He turns his head and sees Vesemir watching him with a strange look in his eye. Worry settles like an uncomfortable weight in his gut. Vesemir always had the uncanny ability to see right through him.

Sanya comes storming in and pulls a protesting Lambert away. Vesemir stands up and quickly calls order to the small group of boys that has formed around Eskel. Most of them are supposed to be at sword practice with Vesemir anyways.

For the first time in his life, Geralt dreads his lessons. With his every thought being torn between hyper focus on Eskel and his need to appear not hyper focused on Eskel, Geralt has no idea how he will fare in the practice ring.

Already he is bracing himself for being separated from Eskel so soon after getting him back. Eskel catches his eyes across Szymon’s head and he knows that he is thinking exactly the same thing.

“Geralt.” Vesemir calls, and startles him out of his spiraling thoughts, “It looks like Eskel might need some new clothes. Why don’t you go with him?”

For a second the only thing he can do is stare. Eskel is more than capable of getting his own clothes. There is absolutely no reason why Geralt should accompany him.

Shakily Geralt nods to show that he has heard.

Vesemir grunts approval and adds over his shoulder as he wrangles the other towards the training room, “And don’t think this excuses you from training. I want both of you in the ring as soon as you get Eskel settled. It’s time to see what nonsense those Griffins have been passing as sword fighting these days.”

Eskel apparently has it much more together than Geralt, because while he is still slightly reeling over being given so much leniency, Eskel is already dragging him out of the hall by his hand.

As they stalk through the corridors, vaguely in the direction of the linen closets, Geralt can feel a hundred words all crowding up in his throat. There is so much that he wants to say. So much he wants to ask. He stares at the back of Eskel’s head; taller then he was when he left and maybe broader too, though his hair is as thick and as dark as ever, falling into his eyes and curling ever so slightly at the nape of his neck, the one single fragile thing about Eskel when the rest of him is strong and solid and thick like the trunk of an oak tree, and his hand is impossibly warm in his, and Geralt finds that as always the words just won’t come.

They reach the door that Eskel was apparently aiming for and Eskel turns to consider him with a hand resting on the door knob. His eyes are full of understanding, and he nods once, squeezing Geralt’s hand before letting go.

It’s exactly like falling back into the place they were in exactly one year ago. Like those past twelve months were just some strange fever dream, and this was reality reasserting itself. Everything snapped back into place and Geralt _knew_ that Eskel understood. That everything he couldn’t say was still somehow heard. Because Eskel knew Geralt better than anyone else did, better than Geralt knew himself.

He felt a rush of warmth go through him, like the heat from a fire after a cold day, followed by a wave of desire. He wanted nothing more in that moment than to feel Eskel pressed as close as it was possible for two bodies to be. He wanted to _know_ that his brother was back, beyond a shadow of a doubt.

“Eskel.” He whispered the name, and saw an answering fire light in those familiar amber eyes. “Where you’d take us?”

“Geralt.” Eskel replied, and smirked, sending a jolt of arousal through Geralt. “Somewhere quiet. Somewhere we won’t be disturbed so that I can greet you properly.” And his hand turned the knob and the two of them stumbled into what turned out to be one of the many unused rooms in Kaer Morhen. Empty save for a few broken pieces of furniture and a cold hearth. It was also, Geralt realized, in a secluded part of the castle. A detail which he hadn’t even noticed on the way over, too consumed with Eskel.

The second that the door was closed behind them Geralt pressed Eskel back against the wall.

Eskel laughed at Geralt’s eagerness and went easily. The second he had learned that he would be returning home that day he had thought of all the thousands of things he would say to Geralt once he saw him again, but now the only thing on his mind was touch. Getting as close as possible, and sex was an excellent way to do that. Talking could wait.

He groaned when he felt Geralt press fully against him. He had seen, almost right away, that Geralt had grown in their time apart, but it was an entirely different thing to feel it pressed against every inch of him.

Though Geralt was still lanky in comparison with Eskel, he had finally began to put on some muscle mass, and he felt impossibly strong and firm under Eskel’s hands, and his thigh was thick were it pressed unceremoniously between his legs. Eskel groaned and pressed down against it, rubbing his hard cock shamelessly against Geralt’s warmth.

Geralt growled, low and fierce, and Eskel’s hands came up automatically to tangle into Geralt’s hair, longer than he remembered it but just as silky. He used his grip to pull Geralt into a kiss that was desperate and sloppy and the best thing he had ever felt.

Pressed against his chest, Geralt was still growling low and continuous, and he broke the kiss to press his face into Eskel’s throat, biting before licking away the sting. His hands were shaking and clumsy as they pawed at Eskel’s clothes.

“You still smell like them. Smell like those damn Griffins. Smells wrong.” Geralt snarled and thrust his hips against Eskel, rutting with a near mindless intensity.

At Geralt’s words Eskel couldn’t help but shiver out a gasp. The scent of lust and Geralt was overwhelming. The scent he had been missing for a full year. All of a sudden he wanted nothing so much as to burry himself inside Geralt until they couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. He felt like he couldn’t think past the blinding heat rising under his skin and the building tension knotting in his stomach. His cock ached were it pressed down against Geralt’s thigh, and he though if they kept this up they could both come just from this, like children rubbing against each other in desperate abandon.

With a desperate breath, he pulled the last of his thoughts together. “Off.” He moaned, and with an effort made his hands unclench from Geralt’s hair, moving them to help with Geralt’s fumbling touch on his clothes. “Need to get them off, come on.”

Eskel meant to force them apart so that they might remove their clothes was quick as possible, but apparently that wasn’t enough for Geralt, who preceded to rip and tear and otherwise wrestle with Eskel’s clothes (even going so far as to use his teeth) until they finally gave way sporting several new wholes. Oh how the griffins would weep to see their precious uniform treated so.

Eskel felt his control snap as a dark, overwhelming desire took its place. Geralt was all desperate, uncontrolled movement against him, but he took the back of his neck in a bruising grip while the other pressed against his chest to flip their positions. With Geralt’s back now pressed firmly against the wall, Eskel leaned forward and claimed Geralt’s mouth as thoroughly as he knew how.

Within seconds Geralt went from growling to a whimpering, shuddering mess. Eskel smirked into his mouth. Four years since their first kiss and still Eskel felt the same heady rush every time he was able to get Geralt to this point. He leant back just far enough so that they could catch their breath, focusing instead on the steady pattern of his hips, grinding his pelvis against Geralt’s with irresistible force.

Geralt moaned and let his head fall forward to rest his forehead against Eskel’s. It felt like an impossible task to speak, but he forced the words out anyways. “Want to make you smell right again. Eskel, can’t stand it. Want you to smell like me, smell like mine.” In his lust drunk haze, it was the only thought that Geralt could hold onto. That after a year apart Eskel smelt like a different school, that his natural pine and sage scent was buried under the stink of Griffin and that that was somehow wrong. He needed to have Eskel back, in every possible way.

“Shh, I know.” Eskel breathed into his mouth, their lips touching but not quite kissing. “I know, Geralt.” With the steady force of the mountain, Eskel pressed Geralt against the wall until his frantic movements stilled with a shudder, and he could finally remove the last layers of clothes between them. When they were pressed together skin to skin it was so much better. “Just like this. Here, hold onto my shoulders, let me take care of you.” Eskel whispered, and took both of their lengths into his wide hand, spreading their pre-cum to ease the way.

Geralt shuddered out a moan and thrust into Eskel’s hand. His hands were bruising where they gripped Eskel’s shoulders.

“Just like that.” Eskel husked in between kisses, “Gonna make you come all over me. Gonna smell like you for days.”

His words had the desired effect. Geralt went practically boneless against him, surrendering entirely to Eskel’s careful administrations. He decided to reward him with a kiss, thrusting his tongue into Geralt’s mouth to the rhythm of the movements of his hand. Geralt tasted so good, and Eskel happily lost himself to the wealth of sensation. The perfect feeling of Geralt’s cock against his, the warmth of his body, the soft glide of his lips, and the pleading, half formed sounds that escaped his throat whenever Eskel twisted his hand just right.

They had been such fools, their masters, to think that they could ever separate the two of them. That they could ever break them apart. Geralt was _his_. Welded into his very being by years of pain and trials. And as Geralt fell apart with a final, shuddering gasp, his cock pulsing in Eskel’s hand as he came, Eskel knew that nothing could ever change that.

Two more strokes and he followed Geralt over the edge, gasping his pleasure as Geralt mouthed wetly at his neck, too boneless to bite and to uncoordinated to kiss, instead landing somewhere in between.

As the last shuddering pulses of his orgasm shook through him, Eskel gently let both of their bodies slide to the floor. In a few minutes they might feel the rough stone beneath them and grow uncomfortable, but for now there was nowhere else he’d rather be.

They ended in a tangle of limbs with Geralt half sprawled over him, his head resting on his chest and a thick, rumbling purr echoing between them. Eskel lay panting while his heart continued to thunder away in his chest. The only things he could smell was Geralt and the combined scent of their sex. It was a heady combination.

It was also irrevocably home. A feeling that had settled so completely into Eskel’s bones the second he saw Geralt that he hadn’t even fully noticed it until now. Beyond the familiar the stone halls of Kaer Morhen and the scents and sounds of his own school, it was Geralt that made him feel grounded. Like he had finally arrived somewhere solid after spending a year stuck in limbo. He knew that they would have to get up in a little bit, and clean themselves a best they could before heading down for practice, and he knew that just because they were reunited didn’t mean that things could just return to the way they had been before, but for just a little while longer he wanted to lay there and not think.

He wanted to rest.


	14. Golden Years

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some good times at Kaer Morhen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for mildly inappropriate drug use
> 
> And Atropa is belladonna, which is poisonous to humans but does cause hallucinations

The following years past in a strange blur. Even as their final Trial loomed large on the horizon, time seemed to slow down. Between freezing winters and warm summers and endless training the rest of the world outside of Kaer Morhen ceased to exist. Or maybe it had never really existed in the first place, and it was only now that they had to face the prospect of leaving soon that they began to understand the strange bubble that they existed in.

Every winter Witchers came home with stories of increasing hatred and violence growing against non-humans. When the news of the Great Cleansing against the elves reached them the trainers walked around with thunderclouds hanging over their head for days.

They were warned, over and over again, that life on the Path would not be easy.

But all of this was somehow detached from Geralt’s life.

Geralt was once again whole, and that was all that mattered.

Geralt and Eskel were careful to keep their interactions in public as blasé and casual as they could. They were no less physically close than they had been before, but they were physically close with all of their brothers, so as long as they didn’t display any unreasonable emotional intimacy they were left in peace.

But whenever they had the chance they slipped away to secluded corners and learned each other as intimately as they knew how.

It was oddly perfect.

Even as they went to bed every night with new aches and pains from training, (Eskel tore a gash in his side when he slipped down a boulder hunting drowners by the lake, Geralt broke his leg trying to jump from the roof and land on horses back) it was tempered with deep satisfaction at their growing skill.

Even when the small bodies of children were brought up from the Trial of the Grasses, more dead than alive, and the whole keep turned their heads and pretended not to see,the sorrow was tempered by the presence of the brothers who had survived.

Of Szymon with his clever eyes and quiet nature, laughing out loud as Gweld and Geralt lurch around the hall, arms across each others back, imitating the rock trolls that live behind the keep.

Of Lambert who was still a little shit but made Geralt smile despite himself with his unrelenting personality and and larger than life antics.

And of the older Witchers, come home for the winter and full of wild stories and strange trinkets and a warm hand ruffled through their hair in passing.

Of Vesemir and his gentle nods of approval when Geralt got something right in training.

And of course Eskel, who never left his side and sometimes felt more a part of Geralt than he himself.

Life at Kaer Morhen was rough, but it was all he had ever known. And it was good.

Laughing, Geralt ran down the corridors and burst out into the courtyard with a howl. Gweld and Szymon were hot on his heels, but Eskel dashed out in front of him and caught the small pouch that Geralt tossed his way before he was tackled by his two brothers.

Geralt went down under the weight of two almost fully grown Witchers, and rolled as gracefully as he could down the short steps to the courtyard floor.

With an indignant shout Szymon realized that the pouch had been passed on, and tried to leap off of Geralt to take after Eskel. But Gweld snaked out a hand and brought him back down while Geralt tackled him and rolled him across the gravel.

Their tough clothes kept the worst of the scrapes away and their joy helped them ignore the rest.

Eskel laughed in triumph and waved the pouch in the air.

His victory however was short lived, because his antics had drawn the attention of Aubrey, a quiet boy who was only a year younger than them and deceptively soft spoken. He crept up behind Eskel and snatched the pouch from his head before his presence was even registered.

Eskel shouted in dismay and Geralt struggled out from underneath his squirming opponents to lunge at Aubrey.

But he was too far away and Aubrey danced out of the way even as he was opening the pouch to see what all the fuss was about. He only had enough time for a single glance, but that was obviously enough for his eyes to light up with excitement. His surprise gave Geralt the perfect opportunity he needed to regain possession of the pouch while Eskel fended off Gweld and Szymon.

“Which one of you little shits had the brilliant idea to sneak into my room and steal my pouch!” The voice cracked across the courtyard like a whip, freezing the boys mid motion.

Witcher Berengar stood glaring with his arms crossed on the top step.

Berengar was young, and had only been on the Path for a decade. A recent close call with a basilisk had left him injured enough that he had returned to Kaer Morhen during the summer to recover, but that had left the usual personable Witcher in a foul mood. With a leg badly mangled from the fight, he had spent his first week in his room, and had only recently started hobbling around the keep again. This had somehow given Gweld the brilliant idea to sneak into his room and see how he had kept himself occupied the whole long week, which had somehow led to the discovery and consequent theft of the very special little pouch which was now clutched in Geralt’s hand. No doubt Berengar could smell Gweld in his room, but with the way his scent was currently burning with anger, Geralt had no doubt that that little detail would make very little difference at the moment.

In a rush of panic, he fumbled the pouch and pressed it into Gweld’s chest even as the little traitor pointed his finger and called Geralt’s name. Szymon and Aubrey, seeing their chance, quickly agreed and drowned out Geralt’s protests.

Seeing that he was outnumbered, Geralt turned on his heel and ran.

Gweld immediately took up the call, shouting “Get him!” And took off after Geralt.

In the excitement of the new chase, the pouch was dropped unceremoniously in the dirt.

Berengar yelled inarticulately after their retreating forms, loudly cursing his leg.

Eskel, being a very sensible Witcher, sat with a heavy sigh on the lower step, having recognized when no one else did that this was only going to end in disaster.

(There were times when he would not hesitate to jump to Geralt’s defense, but there were also times like this when Geralt was simply too impulsive, like running from something that he hadn’t even done, for Eskel to bother intervening.)

With three young Witchers nipping at his heels, Geralt put on every ounce of extra speed that he had to pull ahead of them and whip around the corner towards the stables. There was a spot there that made it easy to clamber up the wall and onto the roof. He could double back and drop down on the far side of the courtyard where it would be an easy dash out the gate. Once he was in the woods it would be effortless to loose his pursuers.

Except Gweld’s shout had obviously drawn the attention of allies, and as Geralt rounded the corner he was met with Barsten and Remus, two older boys who were just coming out of the stables. Remus even had a bucket of soiled hay he was hauling to the compost. Seeing the chase and apparently deciding that the fact that Geralt was on the run was proof enough of his guilt, Barsten lunged forward to tackle him. Geralt dodged around him with ease, and ducked under the bucket thrown at his face by Remus, only to be hit with a full blast of Aard that sent him flying sideways into a pile of fresh straw that had recently been brought up and was waiting to be put away.

Geralt disappeared completely into the pile and came up flailing his arms about and spitting out clumps of straw before he was tackled straight back into the pile by Gweld, Szymon, and Aubrey.

Remus and Barsten happily joined in with howls of mirth, and it quickly turned into a free for all.

Suddenly a hand was reaching into the pile of squirming Witchers and was firmly pulling them apart.

Once they were all more or less standing Berengar fixed them with a quelling gaze. In his hand he held the pouch. Eskel came trailing over behind him, looking resigned.

“Now, what exactly were the lot of you hoping to accomplish with this little trick of yours?”

“It was Gweld who-“

“I know who was in my room.” Berengar interrupted, “And I don’t give a shit cause the rest of you weren’t exactly planning on returning it. Am I guessing right? That’s what I thought.”

Remus and Barsten, who had come late into the game, were standing to the side looking confused and worried. Geralt and the others hung their heads and shuffled their feet. There really was nothing that they could say that wouldn’t be a lie.

While Gweld had been the one to steal the pouch, it hadn’t taken long for Szymon to notice it, and then for Geralt two snatch it out of his hand when he realized what it was. That was how the whole chase had begun in the first place.

“Now I reckon you all know what this stuff is, or you wouldn’t be going so wild over it. I also reckon that you were thinking you would take a small pinch tonight maybe up on the roof and have a very pleasant evening. I’m assuming you all have places you need to be?” Berengar asked in a tone that would not be denied.

Geralt, Szymon, Gweld, and Eskel all echoed that they had sword training with Vesemir. Aubrey had potions with Jarosław and Barsten and Remus had Signs with Varin.

Berengar grinned and Geralt felt a chill go through him.

“Good.” He said, and reached to open up the pouch. “Then let me offer you something to calm you down before you have to attend to your strenuous lessons. Here, I insist.”

All of a sudden Remus and Barsten went from mildly confused to terrified.

“But-“

“We didn’t really mean to-“

“No.” Interrupted Berengar. “At Kaer Morhen it’s only polite to share with your brothers, and since most of you are almost full Witchers yourselves, I think it’s only fair that I should share this with you.”

He held out the open pouch to each boy, and placed a large clump, far larger than they would normally take, into their hands. The dried plant felt scratchy against the skin of their palm while the faint scent of dried plants wafted up to their sensitive noses.

Atropa was a very rare plant this far north, as it normally grew only south of the Yaruga river in warmer, moister climates. In small doses, it functioned as a mild pain killer, but it was also a very effective psychedelic drug for Witchers. One of the few plants that had such an affect on them.

Geralt tentatively brought the dried leaves to his lips. Berengar watched them carefully. Geralt bit into the leafs.

Needless to say, practice that afternoon was very interesting. Berengar and some other Witchers laughed themselves illy watching them stumble over themselves as they tried to keep up with Vesemir’s commands and not get distracting by all the pretty floating colors. And Vesemir, who had been rather unfairly saddled with their intoxicated selves, never let them live it down for as long as they lived.

That evening after the drug had finally worn off and they had stopped wondering around the keep in a fascinated daze, Geralt and the others sat slouched in the hot springs groaning around their pounding headaches. It would go away in an hour or so, Witcher hangovers never lasted long, but it was still highly unpleasant in the moment.

Their saving grace was that they had the hot spring to themselves.

Geralt, who was working half heartedly to get the stubborn knots and stray pieces of straw out of his hair, growled softly in frustration. “I can’t believe you thought it would a good idea to sneak into Berengar’s room and steal his stash of Atropa.” He said scowling at Gweld.

Gweld just scowled back. No one here was intimidated by anyone else. “I can’t believe you thought it was a good idea to steal it from me. If you had just let it be I would have gotten away with it just fine.”

“Oh yeah? How? Ow!” Geralt snapped as he pulled on a particularly nasty snarl and tugged painfully at his scalp. Eskel heaved a long suffering sigh and forced his eyes open from where he had been half dozing next to Geralt and battered his hands away with muttered admonishments before tending to the snarl himself, much more patiently.

“I had a plan!”

“No you didn’t. And Berengar would have smelled you in his room either way.”

“Please, for the love of all that’s holy, will the two of you shut up!!” Remus groaned from across the pool, and splashed them half-heartedly with a spray of water that didn’t even reach them. “My head is killing me.”

Normally, such an assumption of command would have led to a scuffle for dominance, but as it was, Remus was not the only one with an aching head, so the others let it go and Geralt and Gweld let their argument subside.

Remus sighed and leant his head back against Barsten’s broad chest. Szymon and Aubrey were leaning into each others shoulders. Everyone’s feet were hopelessly entangled in the middle.

Eskel continued his careful detangling of Geralt’s hair, and the gentle pulling against his scalp was pleasant enough that Geralt was beginning to feel drowsy. He leant back against Eskel and only smirked when he weakly complained that he wasn’t finished yet.He’d worry about his hair in the morning, right now he was more interested in the warm arms coming up around him, and the companionable silence that had settled over the pool as his brothers sunk down into the hot water and waited for their aching heads to go away.

Life at Kaer Morhen was rough, but it was also good.

The next year, it was time to face the Trial of the Mountain. The Trial to earn their medallions.

The Trial that was deceptively easy.

There were no mutagens. No spells or potions or anything that would force their bodies and minds into new and altered states. They only had one, very simple task.

In the early fall morning, they were woken before light and blindfolded. A simple casting of Axii further disoriented them. One by one they were taken through a portal and then led through the woods. Guided by a single Witcher, they walked for hours until they reached their destination.

Geralt, his mind and senses blanketed by Axii, was barely aware of being tied to a tree before the Witcher leading him walked away. In his state, he had no idea in which direction the keep was or how far away he was. All he had were the clothes on his back and single steel knife, barely the length of his open palm, strapped to his waist.

The ropes tying him to the tree were thick and strong.

In a few minutes time, Axii would wear off and then the Trial of the Mountains would begin.

It would end when he made it back to the keep.


	15. The Mountain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Geralt survives the last Trial

The first thing that Geralt does when he makes it out of his bonds is to get his bearing.

After much squirming and wriggling and a little bit of awkward contorting he manages to slip out of the ropes tying him to the tree. Standing up, he took a curious sniff of the air.

According to the rules of the Trial, he was not allowed to remove the blindfold covering his eyes. He would have to rely on his other senses instead.

He turned until he felt the sun on his face.

They had been taken early in the morning, so the light was still weak, but it also meant that it was coming directly from the east.

The air smelled of pine and morning frost, but he could also smell the various animals scurrying about in the undergrowth; the musk of a badger who had recently passed through and the dusty fur smell of a fox den and very faintly the scent markings of a bear. He could hear the birds chirping and the rustling of a fox in the distance, the mad scrambling of squirrels and the barely-there, nervous tread of deer.

But he could also smell the faintest whiff cold, clear water and hear the rushing of a creek coming from the south.

There was a creek to the northwest of Kaer Morhen, one that had it’s source high in a cave above the keep and therefor always smelled slightly like minerals. Geralt nodded to himself and headed towards the creek. He would get a better sniff of the water to make sure it was the right one, and then he could use it to navigate towards Kaer Morhen.

Keeping his dagger gripped loosely in his hand, he stepped lightly and carefully over the ground, made springy by the fallen pine needles. He was careful to feel forward with each step, moving his bare feet over the ground before committing his weight, so that he wouldn’t trip over any stones or large branches. He was lucky that the forests around Kaer Morhen were relatively dry, so that the underbrush never got too dense. This would be much more difficult in the overgrown forests and swamps of the south.

He made it to the creek in good time, and was pleased to find that his guess had been right. It was the correct creek. He took a grateful drink of cool water, and then sat a while listening carefully.

From the sound and the size of the rock he was currently sitting on, not to mention the speed of the water passing over his hand, the creek was rushing fast over boulders and waterfalls. He could try to leap it, as he was uncertain about the exact distance and the terrain on the other side, he would rather not risk it.

He would have to travel further to find a spot to cross.

Unfortunately, the sound of the water had masked the rustling in the bushes, and by the time that Geralt heard and smelt the raw meat stench of the warg, the hairy creature was already leaping over the rushing creek towards him.

Geralt hissed and rolled out of the way at the last minute, coming up in a crouch with the dagger held in front of him.

Wargs were usually nocturnal creatures, but it was still foolish of him to approach a water source and not be on the lookout for dangerous creatures coming down for a drink.

He heard the warg growl, and scrunched his nose at the foul smell of its breath. Wargs were certainly not the most hygienic of creatures.

He heard the way its paws tensed against the ground, and prepared for it to leap once more.

This time rather than rolling away, he dove low and rolled straight underneath its leaping form. The warg twisted midair, its spine bending in almost a perfect ‘u’ shape, but Geralt had anticipated this and was already moving to bring the dagger up in a slashing movement that he felt bite satisfactorily into the warg’s flesh.

The warg howls in pain, but without his sight, Geralt misjudged the distance, and the beast lands a heavy blow to his side before he can spin out of the way.

Through the adrenaline of the fight, Geralt can’t feel the pain yet, but already he can feel the warm splash of blood on his skin. He grimaces but forces himself to move, circling around the warg so that it is forced to twist tightly around itself, keeping the creature off balance.

This time he doesn’t let it make the first move, but with a sudden burst of speed lunges forward, using the sound of the creatures heavy heart to locate it, and plunges his dagger into its side.

The warg howls and thrashes around, but Geralt leaps nimbly out of the way, pulling his dagger free as he goes.

Furious, the warg gives chase, but Geralt leans to the side, feeling the hot rush of its foul breath as it passes, and slashes once more across its shoulder.

He hears the beast stumble when it lands, and takes the opening to leap onto its back, holding onto its thick neck ruff with one hand while with the other he plunges his dagger down, aiming for the side of the neck. He feels hot blood gush over his hand and stabs again for good measure. The beast writhes and snorts and finally goes still beneath him.

Panting, he climbs off and takes a moment to catch his breath.

The wound on his side has begun to ache, but with gentle fingers he feels it out. His shirt is ripped, and there are three gashes across his ribs that are staining his side with blood, but what worries him more is the tender feeling of his ribs. The force of the warg’s blow was enough to at least bruise them, if not crack them.

If he had a healing potion on hand this would be no issue, but as it is he has none. Nor does he have time to meditate. Since his shirt is shredded anyways, he tears it into strips and binds his chest as best he can. If there are any cracked bones, this at least will provide some support. Then with a few steadying breaths he pushes the pain aside.

His Trial is nowhere near to being done.

After washing off the blood as best he can, all number of beasts are attracted to the scent, he continues on his way.

Since the fight, the sun has continued its climb towards the zenith, and the increased warmth brings a light sweat to Geralt’s skin as he follows the steep path along the creek.

Geralt walks for several hours, occasionally stopping to drink water or two reorient himself.

By the time the sun was shining directly down on him from its midday position, the sound of the creek had changed drastically. As the ground below his feet leveled out, coming to a slight plateau, so too did the water, flowing slow and shallow instead of fast and deep. He searched out a potential ford by feeling along the bank and listening for the tell tale rush of water flowing over large rocks before carefully wading to the other side.

He was now safely on the correct side of the stream. Kaer Morhen should be directly to the southeast of him. The only problem was that he had no idea when to turn away from the creek.

So far he had been simply following it east, but the problem was that it flowed in a large curve around the keep, and never actually led directly to it. At some point he would have to cut off into the forests, and find some other landmark to guide himself by.

He walked a short distance away from the creek and took a careful sniff of the air.

As the day wore on, the wind had died down to almost nothing, but he could still smell the faint scent of snow being blown down from the peak, meaning he was closer to the top of the mountain than he thought.

Though every major peak in the Blue Mountains remained snow clad throughout the year, there was of course only one that was this close to the particular creek that he was standing by.

He tried to get a sense of its distance by tasting the air. The wind was blowing steadily from the same direction, despite its weak strength. If he kept following the water, at some point the creek would curve north and the ground would turn steep and rocky but if he turned away too early he could theoretically miss Kaer Morhen completely by walking too far to the west.

On the other hand, even if he only walked vaguely in the direction of the keep, he might eventually come close enough to scent it. Then he could simply follow that home.

With his mind made up, he took one last deep drink of water and headed off into the woods.

Now that he was walking parallel to the mountain, with one leg higher than the other, the slope was a little more noticeable, so he ended up walking slower to accommodate, but he still managed to make good time.

After another hour, he came to what smelled like a well worn deer trail. The trodden down path let him speed up into a steady jog, and he decided to follow that as long as it pointed in more or less the right direction.

The encounter with the warg had kept him on his toes, and so Geralt easily hears the tell tale screech of a forktail sometime during the late afternoon.

The creature was obviously flying quite a distance away, but Geralt nonetheless moved off the deer path to walk under the densest tree cover he could find by feeling out the darkest shadows. With any luck, the forktail would find some other prey long before it could find him. With nothing but a dagger, and already injured as well, such a creature would be truly difficult to kill. 

Of course, the advantage of having so many things to focus on was that his mind was relatively quiet. Between navigating without sight, avoiding tripping on roots and rocks, and keeping his attention on the forktail and the hundreds of other creatures roaming the woods around him, Geralt had hardly any time left to consider how his brothers might be handling their Trial.

With only four of them, it was almost impossible that they would run into each other, as the trainers would have taken pains to place them each as far away from each other as possible.

He knew that Szymon’s instincts were scarily close to foresight sometimes, and that he was most likely walking in the right direction. Gweld could be impulsive, but had a good sense for mountainous terrain and knew the surrounding ridges around Kaer Morhen better than any of them. And Eskel was above all else smart. He would find his way home.

With the small part of his brain not focused on tracking, Geralt held onto those facts with all of his strength.

Those were the facts that were going to help see his brothers through.

Not the fact that anything could wrong.

That even a Witcher could trip and break a leg. Or that anyone of them could be attacked just as Geralt had been, only to be grievously wounded or outright killed. Or worse of all, that they might truly become lost and fail the Trial all together.

A Witcher who failed to earn their medallion was no Witcher at all, so such a fate did not bear thinking upon.

Geralt stopped as the forktail gave another particularly loud screech before the flapping of its wings grew distant, signaling that it had finally flown off.

That at least was a weight off his shoulders.

But by now late afternoon was switching over into evening, and any number of things besides forktails would be coming out to hunt.

With the approaching darkness came a stronger wind as well, rushing down the slopes and cutting through the trees to nip at Geralt’s exposed skin. It was no where near cold enough to be a threat to a Witcher, but it was vaguely uncomfortable non the less. Not to mention that hunger was starting to make itself known as well. After all, Geralt hadn’t eaten anything since dinner last night.

Slowing his walk just a little, Geralt let his hand reach out and brush along the undergrowth as he passed, snatching up berries and leaves whenever he brushed against the appropriate bush. He didn’t want to waste the time to hunt, so grazing would have to do.

Shortly after, luck and bad luck struck at the same time.

The lucky part was that with a shift in the wind, a faint scent of wood smoke was brought to him. A smell that could only be coming from Kaer Morhen this far into the Blue Mountains.

The bad luck was that the same wind brought with it the stench of echinemon and their distinctive, screechy, hissing voices. From the sound there were at least five of them, short legged creatures with long bodies and bristle along their backs, their long teeth clacking together as they made their way towards Geralt.

Carefully, he moved himself to be better down wind, considered, and despite the uncomfortable twinging in his ribs, quickly climbed up the nearest tree.

Echinemons were not particularly dangerous on their own, but they were incredibly vicious and in a pack could be more trouble then Geralt wanted to get into at the moment.

Tucked against the trunk of a pine tree, he waited for them to pass on.

Some other creature, however, was not so lucky. The five echinemons abruptly fell on a badger den, and though the creature was of a similar size to them and vicious as well, was gleefully torn to shreds amongst loud, piercing yowls. The scent of blood and death, as well as the vicious satisfaction of the echinemons, grew thick in the air.

Geralt grimaced.

In the distance, the forktail screeched. The scent of blood and the sounds of slaughter had drawn its attention, and it was heading back with unerring speed.

Knowing that he had no desire to get caught up in a fight between a forktail and five echinemons, Geralt slithered down the tree as quietly as he could, and quickly stalked away, keeping the creatures carefully in his awareness the whole time.

The air was filled with the flapping of wings. The forktail was getting closer.

Suddenly it burst through the tree canopy with a roar, and descended on the feast. The force of its entrance rattled the trees and dusted Geralt with a light coating of pine needles.

The echinemons shrieked in fury and the sounds of battle quickly resumed.

Geralt took his chance and ran, fast as he could blindfolded, away from the struggle.

But with full dark came more creatures.

A giant bat swooped into Geralt’s path with startling velocity, its impossibly high voice lancing through Geralt’s ears, and forced Geralt to dispatch it with a few lightening fast swipes of his dagger before he had managed to regain his bearings.

After that it took a while for his hearing to return to normal, and once he had the forest was alive with so many sounds that it was hard to keep track.

Though he had often spent nights in the woods, camping out when he ventured on longer hunting trips to bring back meat for the keep, it was an entirely different experience to be wondering around blindfolded and poorly armed and armored.

And of course, it had long been theorized amongst the boys that the trainers used some arcane magic to summon as many monsters as possible and drive them all into a frenzy for the express purpose of making this challenge more difficult. To be sure, Geralt had rarely encountered as many creatures face to face on his trips as he had tonight.

But whether or not that was true was irrelevant at the moment, and so Geralt simply pushed on.

In the distance, he could hear a pack of yowling malks, the oversized cat like creatures that only came out from their caves after dark, but thankfully the faint scent trail of smoke that he was still following was leading him in the opposite direction.

At some point the forktail came back, following the trial of blood that Geralt was not quiet able to hide, and forced him to run in a desperate zig-zag until he was able to shake the creature, leaving him woefully off course and forcing him to spend another hour trying to pick up the right direction again.

At another point he came to a stream, swift flowing and deep and ice cold that left him shivering after he crossed it.

His chest, with its cracked ribs and claw marks and deep bruising, continued to ache despite his best efforts to ignore it.

Even as he found berries to forage, hunger was an annoying distraction.

His bare feet were sore.

But he kept going.

And the next morning Geralt stumbled into the courtyard of Kaer Morhen and was greeted as a full Witcher.

As the first tentative light of dawn was breaking over the keep, he crossed the short moat around Kaer Morhen and heard the ancient gate being opened.

Under his feet, he felt the forest floor turn to the loose gravel of the front courtyard. But still he did not take off his blindfold.

In front of him stood Rennes and Vesemir, and he could hear the excited heartbeats of some of the younger trainees, dragging their feet on their way to their morning run to see who had made it back from the Trial.

But the only traces of his brothers, of Eskel and Gweld and Szymon, were the faint scents from two days ago.

He barely even felt his exhaustion or hunger, but still couldn’t help his trembling.

Finally Rennes told him to remove his blindfold.

Geralt’s first sight was the ancient stones of the keep, and Vesemir’s smiling face. Proud as he never let himself show.

Geralt had made it.

Rennes stepped forward and reached out his hand. In it rested a silver medallion, roughly the size of the circle made by a thumb and forefinger, and glinting silver in the low light. On it was the embossed head of a snarling wolf.

Neither Vesemir or Rennes spoke as Geralt approached. The younger boys had long since been herded away.

He reached out and grabbed the medallion, felt the chain slip quicksilver smooth through his fingers, and slipped it over his head. It hummed once and then settled. Like it had always meant to be there.

Rennes nodded once and returned to the keep.

Vesemir nodded and grunted, “Welcome home, Witcher.” Before turning to follow Rennes.

Geralt could only shake.

Witchers did not stand on ceremony.

He was a Witcher.

He knew that if he went inside, the other trainers might give him similar nods of acknowledgment. Might even give him some words. He could take a healing potion for his ribs. He could eat a warm meal. He could sleep.

But his brothers had not yet returned.

Geralt turned and sat on the front steps. Like Rennes and Vesemir had greeted him, he would be there to greet his brothers.

The sun had only barely risen above the keep when Gweld stumbled into the courtyard.

Geralt had been forewarned that someone was returning when Rennes and Vesemir had returned to stand besides him, but with the wind against him he had not known who it was until the gates opened and admitted the tousled haired youth.

He too was blindfolded, and limping with a bloody leg. But he was alive.

After he removed his blindfold and received his medallion, Geralt rushed forward and they embraced, so tightly that Geralt felt his ribs creak. But he didn’t care.

Gweld looked as exhausted as Geralt felt, with dark circles under his eyes and several bleeding cuts beside the one on his leg, a souvenir from the very same forktail that had given Geralt so much trouble. Apparently it too had chased Gweld for a while, until Gweld took an accidental tumble off a short cliff, leaving him in a gully too narrow for the sally creature to reach.

They were both hungry. But stronger than any physical ache they felt keenly what was missing. Two brothers had yet to return.

They sat down to wait.

Morning turned to noon, and worry starting to curl bitter tight in Geralt’s stomach.

What if they didn’t make it back?

When suddenly the gate groaned open, and Rennes and Vesemir reappeared, warned by the sentry on the wall, Geralt gasped with relief. 

Eskel had made it back.

Walking slowly and with obvious discomfort, with the knife clasped loosely at his side bloody, but alive. And the best damn thing that Geralt had ever seen.

He waited, breathlessly, as Rennes stepped forward and offered Eskel his medallion and Vesemir gave him his greeting. He shook with impatience as the two older Witchers passed by him and returned into the keep. But after that he could contain himself no longer.

With a shout he lunched himself off the steps and flung his arms around Eskel, laughing. The force of it knocked both of them off their feet, and they went down in a tangle of limbs, Geralt’s ribs protesting the movement with a sharp ache that he promptly ignored. He had much better things to focus on.

Like the dusty smell of Eskel’s hair, tangled like it only ever got after a truly rough tumble in the dirt. And the sweat and blood smell of his skin, almost as familiar as his natural scent of juniper and sage, from a childhood spent under the ruthless tutelage of Witchers.

Gweld was there too, his arms wrapped around the both of them, and Eskel turned to tuck his head under his chin for deep inhale, purring tucked between his two brothers. Butt eventually Gweld disentangled, and let the two of them be.

They clung to each other wordlessly for several minutes, and were kindly ignored by the few others who happened to pass by.

Eventually they both sat up, though without moving from their spot in front of the steps, and began comparing their injuries.

Eskel had a long gash down one arm, deep but clean so that it was unlikely to scar badly. He had gotten it after running into an angry bear of all things, though those usually left Witchers well enough alone.

Geralt showed Eskel the claw marks down his side, and Eskel ran delicate fingers over the aching in his ribs.

They did not express sympathy, or concern, or any of the other things which humans might have offered when faced with such injuries. They were Witchers, and the emotion behind their examination would have been poorly understood by anyone else.

Mapping the changes to each others bodies, even temporary ones, was about laying a claim. Staking ownership over the being in front of them, so that neither pain, or injury, or even death, could ever hope to threaten it.

Afterwards, they returned to where Gweld was perched on the steps and waited.

And waited.

Noon turned to afternoon turned to evening.

Someone brought out bowls of food and doses of Swallow for the three of them. Which they dutifully consumed.

And still they waited.

Finally, when the sky was getting dark and their thin clothing was becoming noticeable against the chill of the mountain air, Vesemir came out to collect them.

Witchers could not afford to let grief or lingering hope get in the way of their duties.

Szymon might yet return tomorrow. But it was best to get some sleep. Freezing outside would do him no good and training would resume at dawn.

Szymon did not return by morning, nor any time the next day.

By the day after that, his name had already been dropped from the tongues of the masters, and Geralt and Eskel and Gweld’s lingering hopeful glances towards the gate were stopped.

The Trial of the Mountain was only deceptively easy, and even Witchers as talented as Szymon could fail.

All their grief, all their rage, was useless against that fact. So they dutifully trucked it all away and resumed their training.

Life went on.

Szymon’s body, like so many before him and after him, was never recovered.


	16. Home Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fifty years later, Geralt is comes home for winter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> little bit of sadness at the beginning, lots of fluff at the end. so much fluff.

After decades of experience on the Path, if Geralt didn’t have a contract and if he didn’t need supplies he preferred to avoid towns and sleep in the woods. It was often just easier that way. But the sky had been threatening rain all afternoon and with the way the wind was picking up Geralt really didn’t fancy sleeping out in the downpour that was sure to come. Just one night in an inn couldn’t hurt, Geralt convinced himself, and turned towards the main road.

He was roughly three days ride from Tretegor, and the local countryside was relatively settled, with orderly fields on either side of him as he rode. It didn’t take long for him to come across a village large enough to have an inn, and even though there were a few hours of daylight left, he figured he could stop here, for the wind really was cold and the clouds were promising to break at any moment.

Despite the bad weather, or maybe because of it, the village square was still buzzing with activity as people ran about finishing their errands before the rain began. Geralt dismounted from Roach and braced himself to wade through the throngs of people till he could reach the inn on the opposite side of the village square.

Amidst the shrieking of children and tired mothers, and the hollering of merchants and exclamations of customers, the stench of sweat and human waste, combined with the myriad of smells, good and bad, that a market place this size could produce was an assault on his senses after so long spent in the woods. Two weeks spent clearing out a nest of harpies along the coast and then a royal wyvern had kept him busy and away from humans. It was an effort not to flinch at every too loud noise and to ignore the bodies that, in their hurry to be somewhere else, came too close to him for comfort.

But it was worth it, he told himself, feeling the weight of his coin purse. With what he had earned after his last two jobs, he could actually afford to pay the inflated prices that innkeepers always charged him for his stay, and a dry night would be nice for a change.

So he entertained himself with thoughts of eating a warm meal he didn’t have to catch and cook himself and sleeping on a dry mattress while he waded through the aural and olfactory assault that was a market place.

Focused as he was on his goal, and on tuning out as much of the market as was safe, he almost missed the small figure that came darting in front of him. He had made it about half way across the square when a young boy, who had obviously gotten away from his mother and was running around heedlessly with the joy of escape, tripped and fell over a stone in front of Geralt.

Geralt immediately came to a stop still a good three feet away from the boy, but the damage was already done. When the boy looked up and burst into startled tears, the mother didn’t even bother looking further than Geralt for the cause of her son’s distress.

Immediately, the boy was snatched up and the women was shrieking, drawing the attention of the crowd like blood in the water draws sharks.

“Freak!”

“Mutant!”

“He was trying to steal the boy!”

The familiar insults rose around him as the villagers closed in. Several burly looking men who looked like they spent most of their time causing trouble but were now transformed into heroic protectors in the presence of a threat pushed to the front and started threatening Geralt with their fists and whatever object they happened to have at hand.

All the while the boy continued to cry.

It was all so painfully familiar. The same hatred and the same violence he had met in so many other villages exactly like this one. The scent ofbigotry was familiar and bitter, and the insults had grown into old companions, and the old surge of anger, of unfairness, was as useless as it always was. Geralt knew that in situations like this there was nothing to do but remove oneself as quickly as possible.

Besides him, Roach gave a panicked whinny at the noise and tossed her head nervously, jostling him as she did so.

In a flash he was up on her back and urging her into a gallop, breaking through the crowd as he wheeled her around and rode away from the village before any of them could think to pursue him.

He was still riding half an hour later when the skies finally broke and drenched him in a torrential downpour.

Just one more month, he reminded himself, as he bitterly set up camp under the densest course of trees he could find, shivering in discomfort as a trail of rainwater made it under his armor and down his back, and then he could turn home for the winter, and he would be safe from the Path for four glorious months. Just one more month, he told himself as he gave up on the idea of a fire and warm food, settling instead for hardtack and some jerky, and then he could rest.

It took three days for the rains to clear up, by which point Geralt was so thoroughly drenched that he couldn’t remember what it felt like to be dry. He was fairly sure that there was mold growing on his clothes and that if he had been human he would have drowned by now.

It took two days to dry out; two days which he spent mostly naked in a clearing, deep in some nameless forest along the foothills of the mountains, all of his worldly belongings strung up between the trees with a fire he had to painfully coax out of the wet wood with gratuitous use of Igni going to speed the process. By that point his travel rations had run out, and so he spent an additional day hunting and then smoking what he caught over his fire.

Roach had plenty of grazing, but he would have to restock her oats soon as well.

Once he felt marginally more like a person and not a drowned rat, he set off to give civilization another try.

A half blind farmer sold him oats for a reasonable price, though Geralt figured that his generosity was due to the fact that his poor eyesight had mistaken Geralt for just an ordinary traveler and not a Witcher. At the next village he passed through, small enough to be happy for the coin but not so small that they would immediately give into xenophobia, he was able to buy rations and was even able to haggle down the price to something decent without being run out of town.

The alderman even mentioned what sounded like a ghoul problem in the local cemetery, and Geralt took the job even though he knew that unless these villagers started properly burying their dead, every heavy rain was bound to bring some form of corpse eating monster to their doorstep.

When he was younger and fresh on the Path, he used to try to explain these things to people, but after the hundredth time this caused an angry mob to form, he learned to bite his tongue and let it be. People did not like being told that their traditions were detrimental, and they especially didn’t like it when a Witcher was the one to tell them.

For once the problem was exactly what Geralt expected it to be, and the ghoul nest was cleared with relative ease.

After that came a rather more exciting hunt involving a cockatrice and a couple of rock trolls who insisted on giving him “pretty rocks” for clearing out the “nasty birdy”.

After that though his luck went downhill. He was hired to kill a warg, which he discovered was actually a man suffering under a lycanthropy curse. He lifted the curse, but then the village was convinced that he was swindling them and refused to pay up.

After that he came across a noon wraith, which were always nasty business, not because they were hard to kill but because they always brought with them some nasty story that always served to lower Geralt’s estimation of humans just a little bit further.

In this case it was a young girl who had been repeatedly raped by her stepfather and had eventually taken her own life when no one believed her accusations. After Geralt dealt with her wraith, he dealt with her stepfather as well, but killing humans always left a bitter taste in his mouth no matter how much they deserved death.

He wished desperately for a drink, but it was too risky to become intoxicated while on the Path, so Geralt had to contend himself with sobriety.

But by then the first frost was beginning to stick to the ground and Geralt figured that it was cold enough that he could turn towards Kaer Morhen and only arrive slightly earlier than was strictly considered acceptable. It wasn’t like they had a law about when Witchers were allowed to return for the winter, it was just custom that they not return before the first snow, or if they did they only returned for a short stay and not the full winter months.

But as he turned onto the narrow paths, little more than deer trails, that wound their way through the Blue Mountains and eventually to the keep, the cold bit in fierce and each morning Geralt awoke to a world turned silver and sparkling under a thick layer of frost, so Geralt figured that if winter was arriving early this year than so could he.

It took him five days of easy travel, walking besides Roach rather than riding her on the steep ground but keeping a good pace non the less, to reach the part of the path called the Killer, a narrow treacherous trail with sharp slopes dropping off left and right and treacherous planks of wood masquerading as bridges over sudden chasms. But he was no longer a human child being made to run it full speed in the dim light of dawn. He was a Witcher full grown and experienced and had little trouble walking the Killer now.

And then with a final sharp turn and a particularly steep incline, the keep rose into view before him.

Kaer Morhen was built nestled into the rocky peak of a mountain, with sharp cliffs and ravines making it impossible to approach except from the front and a small postern gate in the east wall which opened to a narrow trail that looped around to the pastures on the far side of the mountain. It was also situated in such a way that it was difficult to see anything but the top most towers from the Killer until one stood directly in front of it, meaning that that final twist always led to a somewhat dramatic reveal of the keep, no matter how often one came here.

And as always, the second that Geralt came within view of the thick granite walls, gray to human eyes but multicolored to his Witcher senses, Geralt felt a great breath leave him and a ton of stress was lifted from his shoulders.

He was home.

He walked over the short drawbridge and into the courtyard, the sound of Roach’s hooves changing as she went from dirt to wood to paving stones, and his entrance was greeted by several friendly faces, mostly trainers but there was already a few others who had returned before Geralt and among those was Eskel.

Eskel who was just stepping down the front steps as Geralt came through the gate, and whose smile was like the warmth of summer even across all that distance.

He waited until those who were closer to Geralt said their helloes, mostly the trainers nodded polite greetings, but his fellow active Witchers pulled him into proper embraces, giving each other a chance to re-familiarize themselves with each others scent and mark any noticeable changes. Finally Eskel stepped forward and Geralt met him at the bottom of the steps, where they embraced. Though they were still careful not to show too much enthusiasm for each other, even after all these years, they could still not quiet hide the desperate relief that they felt every year, when they returned to find that both of them had once again survived the Path. And when they separated after an eternity that was too short, Geralt couldn’t help but look Eskel over, with his eyes if he couldn’t with his hands.

Fifty years later and Eskel was still the most beautiful thing that Geralt has ever seen, though it had taken him many years to realize it.

When they were children, Eskel simply was, and Geralt never thought of him as particularly beautiful one way or another. Not only did he not have much in the way of comparison, appreciation of beauty was never a thing taught at Kaer Morhen, and no one ever talked about physical attraction and sex beyond the most perfunctory terms. Therefor it wasn’t until he had spent several years out on the Path, picking up bits and pieces from the humans that he came into contacted with, that Geralt learned to appreciate the concept of beauty and to apply it to Eskel, beyond simply looking at him and thinking, ‘yes, this one is important’.

It wasn’t until they regularly had to spend most of the year apart that he learned to feel his breath vanish and his throat tighten whenever he caught his first glimpse of Eskel in the winter.

Before he learned to see his brother, his lover, as something more than just an extension of himself but also as a being whose form delighted and enticed Geralt. Whose amber eyes were warm and gentle and whose large hands were soft and firm and whose laughter distracted Geralt from even the most awful aspects of his life.

Beautiful and familiar.

There was no scar, no mark, that could change that.

Over the decades, they had both taken other lovers. Witchers had no particular attachment to any monogamous tradition, and sex has never been seen as anything remotely like a taboo amongst them. Geralt especially, who craved physical intimacy more than Eskel, finds fleeting comfort in the arms of men and women and human and elves and mages and everything in between, but this has only taught him to love Eskel more. To learn, through comparision, that what he feels for Eskel is special and true and nothing which he could ever hope to feel for another.

It doesn’t take long to see Roach safely ensconced in the stables, and a young trainee roped into bringing Geralt’s bags upstairs. Then Eskel hooks a finger into Geralt’s sword belt and gently tugs him towards the hot springs.

Exhaustion, the kind that builds up after three long seasons on the Path, is starting to weigh down Geralt’s limbs and slow his thoughts, but even so a bath is still the most important thing. He’ll sleep deeply for several days, practically comatose in the way that most Witchers are when they return home, but before he collapses he needs to wash the stink and the grime of the outside world off his skin.

Eskel sits pressed up against him in the too-hot-for-humans water, casually holding him up as Geralt goes practically boneless. A couple other brothers stop by, those who weren’t in the courtyard when Geralt returned, and slip into the water just long enough to exchange a few words in greetings. But this early in the winter the keep is still mostly empty, and it will be a few more days before everyone is returned home.

Just before Geralt is about to fall asleep for real, Eskel pulls him from the water and leads him to his room.

For appearances sake, Geralt will eventually choose his own room from one of the many that line the long corridors of Kaer Morhen’s upper levels, but for now he was too tired too care. The other Witchers would be able to tell, by scent if nothing else, if Geralt and Eskel end up sharing a room like they did most winters. There were very few secrets in Kaer Morhen, and mostly they had perfected the art of _not noticing_ things which were easier not to discuss.

Once he’s safe behind the solid wood of Eskel’s door, the last few ounces of tension leave Geralt’s shoulders, and he barely makes it to the bed before he passes out. His last thought are of the warm press of Eskel’s lips to his forehead and the slide of cool sheets against his clean skin.

When he finally wakes up for real, some three days later, it’s to find several more familiar scents slumbering behind closed doors, and a few more familiar faces walking the corridors. A few days after that the keep rings with the sounds of some fifty odd Witchers, almost everyone returned early this year and already filling the halls with the warmth of their presence.

He heads down to the hall for dinner, and is pleased to see Lambert’s closed cropped dark hair sitting amongst his brothers, and he doesn’t hesitate to shove his way onto the bench next to him, pushing playfully into his shoulder and ruffling his hair, but most importantly inhaling a deep lungful of his scent, noticing the lingering trace of tension and resentment which never seem to leave the surly Witcher, as well as the lingering signs of hunger which he silently promises to eradicate within the first week.

Dinner passes in a pleasant blur of familiar voices, each talking over each other until a dull roar of noise like waves breaking on a beach fills the large space. Afterwards some of the younger Witchers, Geralt and Eskel included, move to the large hearth at the far end of the hall and sprawl out on the furs laid out over the stones there. A bottle of White Gull is passed around, and the tales from the Path grow more and more ridiculous as the night progresses. Lambert recounts a particularly unbelievable story involving a Katakan and a highly explosive keg of mahakam spirits which everyone laughs uproariously at even as they all call bullshit.

Geralt recounts the story of a couple of rock trolls he had met, early in the spring not far from the Blue Mountains who had come across an abandoned merchant’s wagon, the merchants having been killed by a pack of drowners after straying too far from the main road, and the trolls had taken quiet a fancy to the colorful dresses which were still stored in the wagon. Though none of the garments fit their massive frames, Geralt had found them draped in the colorful swathes of fabric, dresses meant for the courts of Kaedwen torn into long shawls and drapes. Geralt had had to have some stern words with them about not attacking any fabric merchants in the future, but he had also indulged them and roughly sewn several dresses together best as he could in order to make something which could remotely fit them.

This set off an immediate response as everyone tried to outdo each other with troll stories, which was a time honored tradition and a good way to pass an evening.

Eventually the stories petered out and the Witchers slumped over until they were no longing lounging on the furs but laying flat across each other in a massive pile, their breathing steadily slowing down to match their heartbeats.

This too was a time honored tradition.

After that they settled into their winter routine. Training in the mornings, sparring against each other because a Witcher never lets himself loose his edge. And then chores in the afternoon, the endless round of repairs that a keep as ancient as Kaer Morhen required,but also the countless small tasks that keep them as self sufficient as an isolated mountain fortress can be. Eskel uses his steady hands to dip beautiful golden candles, the pleasant scent of beeswax following him for days after. Lambert disappears into the cellars for several days, carefully tending the still where he produces his infamous spirits. Geralt takes up his knitting needles and churns out a prodigious amount of sweaters and scarves and hats. Repairs are made to armor and weapons, and rare potions are carefully brewed and restocked. Evenings are spent drinking and talking and even more idle work.

They never discuss the Witchers who don’t make it back that year. There is always a chance that they simply got caught up somewhere too far away to make it before the snows closed the pass, or maybe they found themselves in need of coin and decided to work through the winter.

The much more likely scenario is of course that they are dead.

At night, Eskel pulls Geralt to their room, and sometimes Geralt falls to his knees and brings him off with his mouth, worshiping his lover the only way he knows how, other times they fall into bed already entwined and Eskel takes him slow and easy and powerful. Sometimes all they manage to do is rub off against each other, too lost in their intimacy to do anything more complex. Sometimes they simply sleep.

Whatever they do it is always good.

In a few short months, Geralt and Eskel and Lambert and all the others will once again part ways to walk their separate Paths. They will not say goodbye because that is not their way. They will not linger or look over their shoulder when they leave.

But they will carefully hoard the memories of warmth and companionship, and the scent and feel of their family all around them and the safety of their home easing a bone deep tension. They will keep these memories stored quietly in the deepest parts of their minds, resolutely telling themselves that they don’t need such comfort even as they take them out during the darkest parts of the night to ward off the loneliness and the pain of the Path. Like a snake collecting the warmth of the sun, Witchers spend the winter gathering their strength. Four cold months to prepare themselves for the even colder eight months they spend on the Path.

Carefully, Geralt focuses on the glow of the firelight across Eskel’s face. The way it highlights his scars and gilds the line of his jaw. He maps his familiar features for the thousandths time and doesn’t let anything else break his concentration. As long as they are both here and whole and together, there is no point in thinking of the the past or the future. There is no point in asking why or considering what ifs’.

Geralt focuses on the now, and lets just the smallest smile move his lips. He lets himself be home, and he lets himself be in love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realized this story kind of got away from me. I had intended to write this very serious, dark, realistic look at a Witchers childhood and ended up writing romantic fluff. oh well. it was a fun ride. thank you for reading.


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